


Seasons of Change: Year 2

by MPRose



Series: Seasons of Change [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Redemption
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2019-07-24 20:15:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16182386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MPRose/pseuds/MPRose
Summary: With Dudley doing his best to help him in secret, Harry's summer break is surprisingly tolerable. Especially with the new friend he has made in the overgrown mutt living in the playground. If only his friends would write to him. Soon, Dobby's warning is promising another adventurous year, one which will test Harry's ability to inspire loyalty in those around him.This story is also posted on FanFiction.





	1. Chapter 1

Harry and Dudley found themselves back in the playground the following day, on a bench in the far corner, a little secluded by the hedges growing around it. The stray dog they had met the day before showed up as well, as if he had been expecting them. Harry supposed it was because he was missing his original owners that he seemed to get attached to him so easily.

As always the braver of the two cousins, Harry had approached the dog after he had rescued them, feeling sorry for the stray. He reminded him of Fang, Hagrid's gentle-natured pet who had frightened him in the beginning as well. The stray had looked up at him with such pitiful eyes that Harry had found the courage to extend his hand very carefully to pet the dog's head. The animal had dissolved into even more pitiful whining, to Harry's surprise. But that had only caused him to try to comfort the dog more, especially as he became aware that under the shaggy black fur, there was only skin and bones.

After Harry had told him this, Dudley had sacrificed one of the sandwiches his mother had given him to take along, to feed the dog, in an unprecedented act of kindness. No more had been needed for the animal to try to stick as close to them as they allowed.

That afternoon, Harry had his books spread around him, together with a pen and a notebook. The strange-looking books drew enough attention without the convenience of magical wards, and he did not want to make matters worse by using quill and parchment.

He and Dudley had opened the cupboard under the stairs the night before. Harry had taken all the books he would need to do his summer homework, as well as his wand, even though he was not allowed to use it. But just having it with him did wonders for his peace of mind.

He had also taken the small bag of sweets he had remembered to buy on the train for Dudley and had handed them over, saying, "They're supposed to be for your birthday. If you can make them last that long."

After that, they had locked the cupboard and Dudley had returned the keys to their place. Harry did not expect he would be seeing any of his possessions until the end of the holidays – except for his books, which Dudley hid with his other few bits and pieces from the magical world that Harry had sent him over the year. He had packed them in his backpack and taken them with him when meeting Harry in the playground. He could tell his parents he was off to do homework with his friends and they bought it. Harry, of course, could not leave the house with any sort of bag. His aunt and uncle would not let him leave with it without checking what it contained.

Harry once again wished he could do his summer homework at home, in the peace and quiet of his room, but he felt it was too much of a risk. His aunt or uncle might poke their head in and all his careful work would be for naught. He sighed, resolved to be thankful for what he could manage with Dudley's help, and went back to reading his transfigurations notes. If only McGonagall were not so fond of formulas.

"I saw Dennis this morning," Dudley said out of the blue.

Harry made a humming sound, not letting the comment interrupt his concentration.

"He said he was sorry for yesterday. He said, Malcolm said, maybe they shouldn't have listened to Piers. He-"

The dog growled, then barked, interrupting Dudley. Harry put his hand on his furry black head, to calm him.

"That's great, Dudders."

"It is? And how many times do I have to tell you-"

"Yeah, sorry, Dudley." Harry finally looked up from his notes. "I do think it's good news. Maybe, if you pretend yesterday never happened, they'll even come to your birthday party tomorrow."

His cousin looked astonished. "But you never liked them."

Harry rolled his eyes. "So what? That never bothered you before."

Dudley shifted uncomfortably.

"Really, it's fine. They're your friends. They don't have to like me."

"I do want them to come to my party," Dudley said wistfully.

That was really the deciding point. Dudley would have stayed mad at his friends indefinitely after their attack in the playground, had his birthday not been around the corner. As soon as his parents began making plans for the celebration, which as usual was meant to include his friends, he became aware that if he did not make up with at least some of them, he would not have any guests. That seemed too horrible a thought so shortly after meeting Harry's friends.

Dudley remembered only too well that previously, it had always been the other way around. He might have made giant steps in self-improvement, but it was too much to ask for not to envy his cousin.

"I'll be out of your way," said Harry. "I would have to, anyway," he rolled his eyes, "but I'll make extra sure to stay in the background, so they'll forget whatever Piers told them."

"Doesn't that bother you?" Dudley asked with a frown.

"Nope," Harry replied cheerfully. The dog snuffled and tried to lick his hand. "Ew, no. Bad dog. Why would it bother me?" he turned back to his cousin. "It'll look very suspicious if you suddenly lose all your friends, just a couple of days after I returned. And that would not end well for me. So there. I'm all for you keeping your friends." The dog's snuffling intensified, before developing into a whine. He again tried to lick Harry's hands.

"I think he's adopted you," said Dudley.

"Yeah, looks like it. I wish I could explain to him that there's no way I can adopt him. Can you imagine what Aunt Petunia would say if I tried?"

Both boys shuddered at the thought.

"Well, at least you could name him. Maybe he'd listen to you better that way. Don't animals obey magical folks better?"

"Some of them do," Harry answered sceptically. Then he drew his brows together and regarded the dog in front of him thoughtfully. "Now, what would be a good name for you?" The dog barked excitedly, then snuffled again.

"How about... Blackie?" suggested Dudley. The dog snuffled and covered his muzzle with his paws.

"Nah, that's far too mild for this overgrown beastie."

"Fang, then? He does have rather large teeth..."

"Uh, no. Hagrid's dog is called Fang, remember?"

"Well, they do look a bit alike."

"But Hagrid's dog is a coward. And not nearly as large or as scary-looking," Harry added thoughtfully. The dog snuffled again.

"So you want to give him a really scary name? Like Monster, or Black Knight, or-"

"Or maybe a really cutesy one, like Hagrid did. He called that three-headed monstrosity of his Fluffy."

" _Fluffy_?"

"Yep. So... How about Snuffles?" The dog answered by barking excitedly.

"I think he likes that," agreed Dudley. The newly named Snuffles did his name justice by snuffling once again.

The name stuck.

Dudley found it was not particularly difficult to reconcile with his friends. Most of them were only too willing to get back in Dudley's good graces. He had always been the leader and the group fell apart without him. Piers, on the other hand, had only been listened to because he had been Dudley's oldest friend. So the decision was easy. If Piers and Dudley fought, it was only a matter of time before the group picked Dudley's side.

The birthday party the next day was very similar to the ones Harry had witnessed before he went to Hogwarts. Dudley's parents turned a blind eye on their son's friends' rowdy behaviour and forced Harry to stay as much in the background as possible. That last part was particularly easy this time, as it had been Harry's own idea to do just that.

The days fell into a tolerable rhythm. Harry spent as much time away from Number 4, Privet Drive, as he could get away with. While Dudley was spending time with some of his friends from the neighbourhood, he had Snuffles for company, who guaranteed that no one unwanted dared to approach him, much less bully him.

Not that Dudley would have stood for one of his friends trying to bully Harry. In fact, he found himself arguing more and more with them for their wild behaviour. When they shouted rude words at Mrs. Figg walking her cats, he turned around so she would not see him. He would cross the street when he saw potential victims coming their way, forcing his friends to follow him. He turned a deaf ear to their complaints about Harry and his dog keeping them from the playground – which used to be their favourite victim haunt. They, in turn, rolled their eyes and teased him, calling him a 'softie'. All in all, his friendships were not what they used to be.

Soon enough, Dudley noticed that he enjoyed spending time with Harry a lot more, especially if Snuffles was around. At least every other day, he brought his cousin's school supplies to the playground so Harry could do his homework. Dudley had to admit, though, that sitting by and watching someone else work could get boring after a while.

Dudley leafed through a thick, leather-bound volume one morning, while Harry was furiously writing in his notebook.

"What's with all the diagrams and formulas?" he asked.

"Hmm?" Harry went on writing without looking up.

"It's just strange. What do you need all this for? You have a wand, you wave it around-" He demonstrated with his arm.

Harry frowned at the paper in front of him, then crossed something out. His eyes finally lifted from the notebook, darting around, as if looking for something. He extended his hand towards the book. "Can I have that back? I need to look something up."

Dudley handed it over, beginning to feel bored. He considered playing fetch with Snuffles again and looked around for some sticks.

"It's not that simple," Harry said before he could decide to pick one up. "Magic, I mean. You first have to understand how everything works."

"That doesn't sound like a lot of fun."

"No? Smeltings didn't change your mind about learning, then?"

Even Dudley could pick out the sarcasm in Harry's voice. He frowned. "Maybe it did," he said, mostly to contradict his cousin.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "No offence, Dudders, but have you done any of your homework yet?"

"Will you stop-" He sighed. "No, I haven't. And I'm so bored right now, I might even have tried to, but I forgot to write down what I have to do."

"Couldn't you ask someone?"

"Who? Piers is the only one who also goes to Smeltings, and I'm still not talking to him."

"What about the people you met at Smeltings?" Harry's face scrunched up oddly for a moment, but he shook off whatever emotion had come over him. "You mentioned your dorm-mate. Artie, was it?"

Dudley was about to dismiss the suggestion, but the idea did not sound as horrible as he would have thought. "Yeah, maybe. He did give me his phone number – after a lot of mumbling and stuttering."

Dudley's parents were ecstatic when he told them he wanted to call a 'friend' from school. They certainly had noticed that Piers had been absent from their son's birthday party and that he had not visited even once since the beginning of summer. Of course they would be worried about Dudley's break with the only friend he had at Smeltings. So when he called Artie to ask about summer homework, they insisted on inviting the boy they had never met before to their house. Dudley would have argued, but did not want to raise his parents' suspicions even more. And Artie had sounded so happy at the unexpected invitation.

Harry cautioned that Artie, who had noticed Dudley's letter exchange when no one else had, might realise there was something odd about Harry. The cousins discussed in detail what to tell the muggle boy and how to explain why Harry was treated the way he was without mentioning magic.

They were still arguing about some of the details when the day of Artie's visit arrived. His parents, quiet and meek-looking like their son, brought him one Saturday morning and stayed for an early lunch to reassure themselves that Dudley's family was more or less trustworthy. They were hardly the sorts of people who appealed to Uncle Vernon, but Aunt Petunia at least would not be deterred from gossiping about everyone related to Smeltings that Artie's parents might have heard of. They left soon enough, promising to pick their son up again the next day.

Harry only turned up briefly to greet the guests and then slunk back to his room, but not before noticing Artie's astonished looks as soon as he was introduced. He heard his aunt and uncle describe him as their unfortunately delinquent poor relation, before he had even gone out of earshot, but he doubted that would be enough to quell Artie's curiosity.

"Is that the cousin you were writing letters to?" Artie asked Dudley as soon as his parents had left.

Dudley looked around in panic, to make sure his parents were not nearby. "You promised not to talk about that!" he hissed as loudly as he dared.

Artie frowned. "But... I didn't say anything in front of my parents... And of course your parents would know. How else would you-"

"No, they don't! How was that not obvious? So will you stop talking about it?"

"But if he lives here—"

"Oh!" Dudley raised his voice as soon as he saw his mother approaching. "Oh, we were going to do some homework now, weren't we?" He sounded very much like his former self, the threat in his voice not the least bit subtle.

"Yes..?"

"Oh, Dudley, dear, what a studious boy you are!" said his mother. "But wouldn't you like a little snack to take to your room? I've made some lovely little sandwiches for the two of you—"

"Won't Harry be joining us?" asked Artie.

Petunia's face froze in an expression of utter distaste. "Oh, no, no. You won't need to spend any time with that – that boy. You and Dudley won't be disturbed while you have fun and study—"

"Well, he can't study with us, he doesn't go to Smeltings, of course-"

"Well, there you go," interrupted Dudley, wishing to end that topic. "Let's pick up those sandwiches and—"

"But what school does he go to?"

This was followed by an awkward silence from both mother and son.

"Ah, well, I'm afraid he goes to St. Brutus' Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys. So now you must see why it would be better if you stayed away from him. I'm so sorry that you have to share the house with him, but I promise you, he won't bother you," she said in her most reassuring voice.

Before Artie could respond, or Dudley could think of the quickest way to get him to stop asking questions, Harry stepped into the living room, looking very casual with his hands in his pockets, as if he did not just hear what had been said about him – or did not care.

"I'm going out," he said. "I'll be back before dinner." He then turned around and walked back out of the room. Soon afterwards, they heard the front door open and shut.

"Well, come on, then," said Dudley and almost dragged Artie up the stairs to his room.

As soon as he had locked the door, he began packing his backpack – with his own books, this time.

"What are you doing?" asked Artie.

"You want to know about Harry?" Dudley almost whispered, then went on packing without looking up to see Artie nod. "I'll tell you about him – but not here. Bring your school stuff, will you?"

They went down again a few minutes later. Dudley told his mother they were going to the playground and she packed their sandwiches for them to take along. A few minutes later, they saw Harry playing fetch with Snuffles, laughing and looking carefree.

"What did he do?" Artie asked softly before they reached him.

"Do? What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean, he must've done something to be sent to that – that St. Brutus Whatsits—"

Harry saw them and waved in greeting before Dudley could answer. "Hi there, come to join me?" he called.

"The tales of St. Brutus haven't scared you off, I see," he added after they reached him and exchanged greetings.

Artie shot Dudley a timid look, then nodded slowly. "You still get along with Dudley, don't you? And I don't even know what you did, so—"

"He didn't do anything," Dudley said suddenly and received a surprised look from Artie, and an alarmed one from Harry. "He doesn't go to St. Brutus," he went on quickly, before he could reconsider. "He goes to a special boarding school for gifted children-"

"Dudley, what—" Harry tried to interrupt, his eyes wide and worried.

"He goes to the same school his parents went to. I think my mum was jealous that her sister – Harry's mum – got to go there, but she didn't. So now..." Dudley finally stopped talking, while the other boys looked at him in astonished silence.

"Oh, wow. So you're super smart, then?" said Artie and regarded Harry with new interest.

"Er, well..." mumbled Harry, while he shot his cousin helpless looks. This was very far from what he and Dudley had agreed they would tell Artie.

Fortunately for him, Snuffles drew attention to himself at that moment, running in front of him before approaching the newcomer and circling him curiously. Having to explain the dog's presence served as an excellent distraction. Artie was soon a lot more interested in how Piers was acting outside of school than Harry's background.

Later, however, when he and Dudley actually sat down to look at the homework they had been given, he noticed Harry leafing through their books curiously.

"Not quite like your books, are they?" he asked.

"Not quite, no," Harry replied, thinking of his ancient-looking tomes of leather-bound parchment.

"This must all be very easy for you," Artie went on.

Harry leaned over to look at the questions. The boys were working on their science homework. "It is," he said and he was the only one who was surprised by his answer.

There were many things he did not know, and many more that looked like he did, but he did not recognise the names. Compared to what he had to learn, though, it was all rather very easy. For example, Flitwick had demanded an insane five-foot long essay that answered a dozen or so hard questions about all the topics they had covered over the last year. And of course both McGonagall and Snape had felt the need to outdo him...

Harry glanced over at Dudley's paper, where his cousin was trying to piece together the solution of the first problem. "No, that's wrong. Here, try this," he said thoughtlessly and wrote his solution in Dudley's notebook.

"Could you have a look through my answers, as well?" Artie asked not surprisingly, and Harry could have kicked himself for his idiotic need to show off. Some of his reluctance must have shown, because Artie said, "You don't have to give me the answers, of course. But if you could just tell me if I made a mistake somewhere..."

Harry picked up his notebook, not wanting to blow his cover, and began reading. His fear faded after only a couple of problems. The names were different and so were some of the calculations – slow and unwieldy and awkward – but you could not learn how to change the very nature of the world around you without first understanding how the world worked. In no time at all, he had looked through the whole thing and corrected what little there was to correct. Artie was a good student, unlike Dudley.

It was a fun afternoon. They stayed in the playground for hours, until even Dudley had solved some of his problems – with some help from both Harry and Artie. They played with Snuffles, who did not act suspiciously around Artie, even though he had only met the boy mere hours ago. He really was a very friendly and smart dog, they all agreed. It was a shame he had to remain a stray.

Artie left the next day, without the slightest suspicion of Harry's magical abilities, something that both cousins considered a success. He promised to write to Dudley before leaving, and even though Dudley pretended not to care, Harry knew that he would stay in touch with Artie, and that he considered him a friend now.

As the days passed, Dudley noticed that Harry was becoming morose. He stayed in his room for hours, even though before he had done his best to stay outside for as long as possible. He was not the only one who noticed, either. Whenever he ended up going to the playground on his own, he would find a depressed Snuffles who could rarely be coaxed into playing even something as simple as fetch.

Enough was enough. One afternoon, Dudley coaxed Harry into leaving the house by telling him that he wanted to show him one of Artie's letters. Once they had been joined by Snuffles, who always managed to get Harry in a better mood, Dudley broached the subject.

"What's with you lately?" he asked without any subtlety.

Harry tried to look like he did not know what he was talking about. "Nothing. What do you mean?"

Dudley rolled his eyes. "You've been sulking for days now. Even Snuffles has noticed." The dog barked in agreement.

Harry looked down. "I... It's stupid, really. Ron and Hermione promised they'd write, but..."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Well. And then what with Artie turning up and sending you letters, I just..."

"Well, what if you wrote to them?"

"I thought about that. But Hedwig is not even supposed to leave her cage. If your parents caught her delivering letters—"

"But they've never noticed her leaving at night. Just tell her to arrive unnoticed. I know she can do that. She's had plenty of practice delivering letters to me."

Harry looked away and imperceptibly shook his head. Snuffles would have none of it and nudged him back towards Dudley.

"See? Snuffles agrees that you're being stupid. Artie didn't call me, because he didn't want to be a bother. But he was happy when I called him. Maybe your friends—"

"You don't understand. You don't know..."

There was a pause , a moment of silence uninterrupted even by Snuffles.

"Know what?" Dudley asked carefully after a beat.

Harry seemed to crumble, to collapse into himself. "I killed someone." His voice, a mere whisper, came from somewhere inside the ball he had curled himself into.

"What?" Dudley laughed uncomprehendingly.

Harry uncurled somewhat, but would not raise his head. His shoulders were tense, his fingers clawing at his legs. Then slowly, haltingly, he began telling Dudley about Sirius Black, as well as Quirrel's undetermined condition – something he had glossed over before. "The tale sounds a lot more glorious when you leave out that bit, doesn't it?" he finished bitterly, finally looking up and resting his chin on his arms.

"What else were you supposed to do? Let him kill you?" Dudley was surprised Harry even thought there was something to worry about.

"I could have learned at least, couldn't I? But, no. I had to go and find more trouble. Hermione told me I was better off not knowing, and so did McGonagall, but I wouldn't listen. And then I wrote him a letter." He paused for a moment. "Not that he didn't deserve to hear what I had to tell him. He did. He probably deserved to die, with all he's done-" He dragged the soles of his shoes across the ground.

Snuffles let out a pitiful whine and buried his muzzle under his paws, in a strange resemblance to Harry's posture. This finally got Harry to come out of his gloomy little bubble. He turned towards the dog and tried to calm him.

"Do you really think your friends blame you for that?" Dudley asked in a matter-of-fact tone. "Even I don't, and I'm not nearly as understanding as them."

"I don't know," Harry replied after some thought. "I don't know what to think any more."

Dudley shrugged. "I still think you should just write to them."

Harry procrastinated some more, but finally the waiting got to him and he decided to listen to Dudley and write to his friends. He wrote two letters, one for each, and sent Hedwig late at night, after everyone else had fallen asleep.

She returned late in the morning, even though Harry had strictly warned her to be back before sunrise. But that was the least of his problems. He did not even worry about his aunt and uncle being mad at him for all the noise she had caused. Neither did it matter all that much that they had nearly seen her.

All that mattered was that she looked bruised and ruffled. The fact that she was not carrying a letter did not come as a surprise after that. Harry was relieved that, at least, she had made it home relatively safely, but this was overshadowed by the worry that something was decidedly wrong. His friends may not have written to him, but of course it was out of the question that either of them might have hurt Hedwig.

Clearly, something odd was going on. He was no longer convinced that no one was writing him. More likely, someone or something was preventing letters reaching him, just as Hedwig was prevented from delivering his letters.

Harry began carrying his wand everywhere with him, but neither he nor Dudley were particularly reassured by this. He knew, and so did Dudley – who had nagged him about a demonstration of magic until Harry had felt he had to tell him – that Harry was not allowed to use magic outside of Hogwarts.

Then Harry's birthday arrived.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry heard shuffling outside his door.

"Are you awake?" Dudley whispered as loudly as he dared.

"Nope. I'm dreaming all of this." Harry heard Dudley sigh. He rolled his eyes. "You sure you should be here? What'll your parents think if they see you?"

"You might've thought of that before you exploded the pudding—"

"It wasn't me!" Harry hissed a little louder than was prudent. "Do you honestly think I'd be that stupid?"

A tiny, snorting laugh came from the other side of the door. "You might've been tempted. After all the times you had to repeat you'd 'be in your room, making no noise and pretending you're not there'," Dudley recited his father's instructions to Harry word-for-word.

"Ugh, don't..."

"So did this have something to do with your disappearing mail?"

"Yep." With that, Harry launched into the tale of his meeting with Dobby and the warning he had been given.

"Oh, no. You're going to get in even more trouble at Hogwarts this year."

"Let's hope I get there first," Harry muttered to himself.

"Oh, yeah, about that. Dad really wants to try to keep you away. Again. He's promised to install bars on your window in the morning," Dudley, who had heard him anyway, told him in a far too cheerful voice.

"What now?" Harry got up from his bed and walked over to the locked door.

"Yeah... He sounded serious. Maybe you should try sending Hedwig again while you still can?"

Harry began pacing his room agitatedly. "And what if Dobby tries to hurt her again? He's spent stealing my mail for weeks now, he's not going to just let me contact my friends now – not after getting me locked up here—"

"Did he at least give back the letters he stole?"

"Yes, they're all here." He looked towards his bed, where he had stuffed the letters under his pillow in his haste to keep the Dursleys from seeing them. "Hermione's written every few days, even though I never replied. And even Ron's letters have grown more urgent. I don't know what they must think of me..."

"With any luck, they'll suspect that something's wrong – It's not like you never get in trouble."

"If only I could contact them, let them know I'm stuck here..."

"What if you used that notice-me-not charm on Hedwig?"

"What? No! I don't want to get expelled!"

"Well..."

Harry made a frustrated noise. "If only I had remembered to ask Hermione for her address or telephone number—"

"Oh, yeah! Great idea. I could call her and—"

"Well, that's just it! I didn't ask her. And it would have made things so easy. Dobby would never be able to stop a message sent the muggle way – he wouldn't even figure out I had sent one! It's so stupid. It's just so easy to forget about muggle things like that in the magical world..."

"Well, don't you remember anything about where she lives? Maybe she mentioned it at some point."

"I've tried to remember. All she's ever mentioned is that she's from London. Her parents are both dentists, but—"

"We might be able to look them up in the yellow pages—"

"Do you happen to have the London yellow pages lying around somewhere?" Both boys sighed.

"Well, maybe you'll think of something else," Dudley said, trying to sound hopeful.

"Yeah, maybe," Harry replied more sceptically. "Or maybe Uncle Vernon will calm down by tomorrow and let me out." He snorted.

Soon after, the boys said goodnight and went to sleep, without having come up with another plan. In the morning, Dudley found it impossible to stay in the house while his father continued in his mad behaviour. He paid a man to fit the bars on Harry's window, while he himself installed a catflap. Dudley's mother was not much better, shouting abuse and threats at Harry whenever she passed his room. Dudley tried arguing against them, but his father was beyond reasoning, and all his mother could talk about was her failed trip to Majorca.

Fed up with his parents' behaviour, he finally left the house. He wandered aimlessly, but his feet soon took him on the familiar path to the playground.

Snuffles met him excitedly, circling him.

"Sorry, Snuffles. No Harry today," Dudley said morosely. His tone was off, causing the dog to sit down in front of him, looking alert. His shoulders drooped. Slowly, coaxed by the dog's behaviour that strangely resembled genuine interest, Dudley told all that had happened the day before. Snuffles stayed close to him and this time it was him who tried to cheer Dudley up by trying to play with him, until Dudley's friends came by and invited him to go along with them, glad to have caught him without his pesky cousin's company.

Given the choice of returning to his home, where Harry was locked in the room next to his, or hanging out with his friends – such as they were – he chose the latter. Their rowdy behaviour grated on his nerves more than usual, but at least time passed quicker, and with less worry.

When he was walking home late that afternoon, he met Snuffles again. The dog unexpectedly ran up to him and dropped a large, paper-bound book in front of him. It took a moment for Dudley to get over his surprise and actually look at the cover. It was London's yellow pages.

"How – how—" was all he could say, in his astonishment. Before he could do more, Snuffles turned around and ran away.

Dudley's parents would not go to sleep for hours yet, which was the only time he could talk safely to Harry, stretching his patience beyond anything he had to endure before. Finally, the house fell silent and all the lights were switched off. He waited until he could hear his father's snoring before walking over to Harry's door.

"Hey, are you awake?" he whispered like the night before. Silence followed. He called again, a bit louder. Hedwig hooted in reply this time. "Hedwig, you have to wake him up. Quietly." It seemed an odd idea to give such instructions to a bird. But animals tended to act rather oddly around Harry.

"Wha'?" Harry's sleepy voice could be heard soon after.

"Harry, wake up!" Dudley hissed as loudly as he dared.

"Dudley? Did something happen?" Harry was alert at once, his voice moving closer to the door.

"Yeah, and you'll never guess what." Despite his words, he did not make Harry guess. He told him all about Snuffles' help. "And here's the telephone," he finished, pushing the cordless telephone through the catflap, followed by the yellow pages.

"Oh, and before I forget-" Another item was pushed through the catflap – a badly wrapped package. "I wanted to give you this yesterday, but... Anyway, happy birthday."

Harry thanked him and opened the package. It contained a few sweets and some owl treats. There was also a sandwich, wrapped in kitchen paper.

"I thought you might be hungry, that's why..." Dudley explained.

"I'm starving. This is the best present you could've thought of," Harry answered truthfully before taking a large bite. After the cold tinned soup he had been given, it tasted delicious. Hedwig agreed as she accepted the owl treats gratefully.

Without wasting any more time, Harry picked up the phone. A few wrong numbers later, a man's sleepy voice answered him.

"Richard Granger speaking. Who am I speaking to?"

"I'm trying to call Hermione. Does she live there?" Harry held his breath, hoping this would finally be the correct number.

"Who's calling her at this time?" came the man's suspicious answer. Harry breathed in relief.

"Hi, sorry for the late call. My name's Harry, I'm one of her friends—"

"Harry? My daughter has been worried sick all summer about you! She must have written you at least a dozen letters—"

"Yeah, sorry about that. Long story, but not really my fault. The thing is, my aunt and uncle have locked me in my room and I don't know if they'll let me out before school begins. They're not really happy about me going to Hogwarts, you see. So I wanted to tell her to pass on the message that I'm stuck here—"

"You – What? What do you mean, locked you in?"

"Er, well, they found out I'm not allowed to do magic outside of school, so they've locked my door and put bars on my window, so Hedwig can't carry my letters. Dudley – that's my cousin – slipped the phone through the catflap so I could call you—"

"Wait – just, wait for a moment—"

Harry heard some shuffling in the background, followed by far away voices.

"Hello, Harry. I'm Jean, Hermione's mother," a woman's voice answered him next. "We had no idea things were so bad in your family. Hermione's been worried all these weeks, but we just thought... Anyway, of course we won't leave you there. If you give us your address, we'll drive over tomorrow—"

"Wait, you can't do that. Dudley'll get in so much trouble if his parents realise he's helped me—"

"But—" This was followed by more background discussions.

"Don't worry about that, Harry, we'll think of something," Hermione's voice came over the phone all of a sudden, causing Harry's heart to skip in joy. "How have you been? What's happened? Ron and I both tried to contact you—"

"It's a long story, Hermione," Harry interrupted his friend's panicky questions. "It's good to hear your voice. Sorry if I woke you up—"

"Never mind that. Please tell me what's been going on—" She was interrupted at that point.

"Harry, Richard again. I think the questions can wait until we meet. It is rather late. But she's right, you don't need to worry about your relatives. We'll bring Hermione and say she just wanted to visit you. Then we'll have a little chat with them—"

"Well, all right," Harry conceded all too happily. The prospect of getting out of the Dursley household was just too tempting.

He told them the address and then they argued about whether the Grangers should arrive before or after Uncle Vernon came back from work. Harry preferred the former, but he knew if there was one thing his relatives would not forgive, it was a scene. A late night visit was bound to be a lot less conspicuous. Hermione's parents were also quite serious about wanting to have a talk with Harry's relatives – preferably both of them. It was decided they would arrive late the following evening.

The cousins cheered – quietly – after Harry had hung up, promised to find a way to thank Snuffles, and then finally went to sleep.

While Harry was stuck in his room, unable to do anything but wait for the evening to arrive, Dudley was free to leave the house, which he was only too eager to do. He was afraid he would say or do something to alert his parents, and ruin everything.

He also wanted to meet Snuffles again. Even Harry had been astonished at the dog's cleverness, trying to come up with an explanation for it that sounded remotely plausible. Dudley was far less drawn to mysteries than his cousin. All he wanted to do was thank Snuffles the only way he could think of. It was not difficult to get his mother to make him a particularly large lunch to go, as she had been trying all summer to feed him more.

The reason for that was that Dudley had noticeably lost weight over the past month. All the lunches he had fed Snuffles, together with all the time he had spent playing fetch with him instead of playing computer games might have had something to do with it...

Dudley did not quite manage to surprise Snuffles, who always managed to appear almost as if from nowhere when either of the cousins arrived in the vicinity of their favourite playground. But Dudley did spot him early on and jogged up to him – something he was also finding a lot easier recently.

They shared the food – though Snuffles had most of it – something he was in dire need of – he was still far too skinny. Dudley also told Snuffles all about the upcoming visit. It was odd talking to a dog, but he felt Snuffles should be told how much he had helped. As before, the dog seemed uncannily understanding of everything he was told.

That day, Dudley delayed going home, thinking with more than a little trepidation of the scene ahead – there was no telling how his parents would react to the guests they were about to receive.

Snuffles, unexpectedly, decided to accompany him once he finally turned to go and would not let himself be shaken off no matter what Dudley tried. Once they reached the house, however, he would not even enter the front garden. He sat down in front of the entrance and began to wait.

"Have it your way, then," Dudley sighed resignedly and went in.

The chaos began soon after. Hermione and her parents were the first to arrive. Even by the Dursleys' standards they looked respectable enough to be let in and heard out. But as soon as they mentioned Harry's name, the Dursleys' faces soured. First, they acted surprised as if they had never heard the name. But as Hermione revealed that she was Harry's classmate, they dropped that charade.

"He's asleep," Aunt Petunia answered coldly. "That's what happens when you turn up uninvited. Now, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave."

"And I want to see Harry before I leave," Hermione said before her parents could reply. "I want to wish him happy birthday. I haven't been able to reach him all summer, you see?"

"And if you had called beforehand, like normal people—" Uncle Vernon began.

"And what exactly do you mean by 'normal people', if I may ask?" Hermione's mother asked.

The conversation deteriorated from there. Dudley debated whether to say something. He did not want to, because there was no telling how much trouble he would land himself in. But he knew his parents would try everything to keep their unwanted visitors from seeing the condition they were keeping Harry in. But of course there was no way Hermione would leave and abandon Harry. He was about to do something desperate, when a loud, crunching noise was heard from upstairs, from the vicinity of Harry's room.

Hermione had had enough at that point. She rushed past the Dursleys, not heeding their angry cries to come back. The adults all felt compelled to follow her up the stairs.

"Harry? Harry! Where are you?" she called.

Dudley, who was following behind last, again had to resist a very dangerous temptation. He just stopped himself from casually pointing out to her which room his cousin was in.

"Hermione, is that you?" came Harry's voice from behind the door with the catflap, pointing the way.

She pushed against the door, just as it was pulled, making her stumble a bit. There was a red-haired boy kneeling in front of it, holding a hairpin.

"All right there, Hermione?" he said far too casually.

As soon as Aunt Petunia spotted the floating car outside the window, she let out a shrill scream. Her husband followed this up by a lot of bellowing and throwing insults and threats. Hermione's parents, however, had seen enough at that point and threatened to call the police on behalf of Harry. That did it. Uncle Vernon grew impossibly red in the face, while his wife paled to a sickly green.

"Fine. Take the boy. Take him and then get out of my house!" bellowed Uncle Vernon. "Come on, Petunia, let's have a cuppa to calm down. And I want to see neither hide nor hair of you – you abnormal people – by the time we're done. Or I'll be the one calling the police!"

He thundered down the stairs, his wife simpering behind him, shooting resentful looks behind her back.

"Where did you come from?" Hermione began questioning the Weasley boys as soon as they had left.

"You said you were going to rescue Harry! After weeks of silence from him, I hear that from you, without proper explanation! What did you think I was going to do?" Ron shot back.

"But how did you get in... And what is that car?"

"Hermione, could we please talk about this later?" interrupted Harry. "Let me just grab my things, so we can leave."

"Lead the way," said George, wielding his hairpin.

"Do you want me to get the keys?" said Dudley, now stepping fully into the room.

"Dudley! Great! I didn't know if I'd get to say goodbye," said Harry.

"Oh, and keys will not be necessary," George supplied in a confident voice.

He was as good as his word. In no time at all, every last one of Harry's possessions had been assembled outside the house, where both cars now stood next to each other. Snuffles, who was also still there, ran up to Harry as soon as he left the front garden.

"Hey there. Seems like ages since I saw you," laughed Harry. "Thank you for saving me." He patted Snuffles on the head, making the dog bark happily.

"That stray dog saved you?" asked Ron. "Looks kind of mean."

Harry and Dudley instantly defended him and told Ron how Snuffles had come up with exactly the thing they needed most. It was Hermione, who actually knew what the yellow pages were, who was most impressed.

"Yeah, it must have been Harry's magic, right?" Dudley said.

"It must have been," agreed Hermione. "No dog could be that smart—"

"But I didn't do anything!" said Harry truthfully.

"Yeah, just like you didn't do anything that time you turned our teacher's wig blue," snorted Dudley. "Or that time you ended up on the school's roof. That time, it was the wind, wasn't it?"

Harry blushed as his friends laughed. Snuffles once again did his name justice, but this time his snuffling sounded eerily like human laughter.

"That's one very interesting dog you've found," said Fred.

"He is, isn't he? Can you imagine what sorts of things he could be trained to do?" George agreed.

"Oh, I can imagine a thing or two." Fred shook his head. "Shame he's a stray. Don't you wish you could keep him?" he asked the cousins.

"My mum would never allow it," Dudley sadly shook his head.

Jean and Richard sent Snuffles speculative looks, but he really was a very large and mean-looking dog. Richard cleared his throat. "Well, Harry, sorry to interrupt the goodbyes, but I think we need to be on our way. Your aunt and uncle-"

"Yes, of course," Harry agreed at once.

The twins stopped their whispering and nodded to each other. "Well, if you won't let us take Harry with us, I think the least we can do is rescue Snuffles, here," said Fred.

"Really?" Harry hardly dared to believe it.

"Really?" asked Ron as well, but with less enthusiasm and more scepticism.

"Really," confirmed George. "How can we stage a rescue mission without rescuing someone? Don't worry, we'll tell Mum we're just keeping him with us until Harry can join us."

Ron tried to protest, but of course his brothers would not listen. He had to resign himself to sharing the back seats of the car with the overgrown dog. The Weasleys all got in their car, which then lifted a few feet before becoming invisible. They heard the engines start and the car drive off, even though they could not see a thing.

"Not bad," said Richard, impressed.

The Grangers had not wanted the teenagers to drive, but had to accept finally that they could not just leave a magical car standing around in a muggle neighbourhood. At least, the Weasley boys would not be stopped on the way, and getting in an accident also seemed difficult to manage.

Then it was time for Harry and Dudley to say goodbye. The cousins shook hands, Harry promised to write, and Dudley promised to call. Then Harry got in the car with Hermione's family and they drove off.

~HP~

Staying with the Grangers was the oddest experience for Harry. Being included in family life, being asked what he wanted to eat, or watch on TV – all very ordinary things, and yet nothing felt more foreign to Harry.

Things got even stranger when Mrs. Weasley came to visit the morning after Harry's rescue and invited him to stay at the Burrow – the Weasleys' home. She also wanted to check up on how Harry was doing, after the stories her sons had told her – and to also confirm her sons' incredible tale. Harry got the feeling that all three boys had been in a lot of trouble, which would have only worsened had he not agreed with everything they had told their mother.

But when she wanted to take Harry back with her to the Burrow, the Grangers interfered.

"He can't leave right away. He's only been here for one night," said Jean. "Let him visit with Hermione for a bit, and then we'll drive him over to your home later in the month."

"Oh, well..." Mrs. Weasley had not expected that. "Oh, but, my husband said you'd had some trouble with using magic, Harry—"

"I didn't mean to—"

"Well, of course. But it can happen sometimes, I suppose. That's why staying at the Burrow might help. No one will be able to tell if you have an accident."

Hermione, of course, wanted to be told about how the wards worked, and while Mrs. Weasley was explaining that to her, Harry had time to consider her offer. Staying at a magical household was bound to be very exciting and he was at once tempted to say yes. The Grangers also looked like they could see the advantage for Harry. And yet, it felt like a rejection of their help, and of Hermione's company.

"Maybe if I stayed a few days?" Harry suggested hesitantly. The happy looks he received from all three Grangers told him he had made the right decision.

"Of course, Harry," Mrs. Weasley smiled kindly. "You can visit whenever you like, and stay for however long you want."

A little over a week later, Harry's letter from Hogwarts found him at the Grangers' house, which was not entirely unexpected. His Hogwarts letters had even managed to find him in a tiny hut on the coast the previous year. Hermione immediately contacted Ron so they could meet up and shop for their school supplies together.

It was also decided that Harry would move to the Burrow at that point. When Dudley called later that day – while his father was at work and his mother had gone shopping – Harry told him about the move which would set an end to the phone calls.

"You know, Artie lives in London, too," Dudley said as an idea occurred to him.

"Yes..."

"If I were to visit him, do you think...?"

"What, visit you there?"

"Yeah."

"Visit where?" asked Hermione, who was reading nearby and had overheard his part of the conversation.

He told her of Dudley's idea, and she in turn, told her parents that evening. Harry himself would not have mentioned it, not wishing to be a bother, but Hermione waved him off when he said so.

"Don't be silly, Harry. Do you know, ever since they've met you, they've stopped worrying about me going to Hogwarts," she confided.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Right... Because I never get in trouble, of course. You still haven't told them anything about what goes on at school, huh."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "That's not what I mean. They always worry that I don't have enough friends and that I might get bullied, and so on. The magical world still seems so strange to them. And secretive – they haven't really seen much of it. But after meeting your family, they sort of get it now.

"My parents, they... My magic never bothered them. They were happy for me, instead. And curious, and awed, and... The only thing that ever bothered them was that they can't be there for me as much as they want to... They never really believed that magical people still have need to hide. My parents were talking about your family the other day... They both kept saying how they couldn't have imagined such prejudice still existing today... I've been really lucky with my family, haven't I?"

"Yes," was all Harry could say.


	3. Chapter 3

The thick row of trees whizzing by on both sides, that barely allowed a glimpse of the patchwork of fields beyond, finally thinned. The car came to a halt at the end of the rickety road. Looking out the windows, the impossibly crooked house in the middle of a paddock let them know they had found the right place.

The Grangers and Harry got out of the car. They had barely reached the tumble-down garage in the front yard, when the front door of the Burrow was opened and a lot of red-haired people streamed out to greet their visitors.

While Harry was watching Ron, the twins and Mrs. Weasley approach and Percy wave and step back inside, a large black shape rushed at him from the side, almost running him over.

"Snuffles!" he greeted the overeager, happily barking dog.

Ron was the next to reach them, sprinting across the yard, scattering some fat brown chickens along the way. "There you are! Snuffles, calm down. How was the drive? Did you find us all right?" he bombarded both his friends with questions.

"Hello, Ron," said Hermione, then paused until Ron remembered to greet her back. She hugged him a little awkwardly. "We barely found you, actually. We lost our way for a little bit, once we left the main road."

Fred and George greeted them as well and began to help unpack Harry's possessions from the car.

"Yeah, could have been the wards... We can't let ourselves be found too easily," said George.

"Oh, dear. Did you really?" Mrs. Weasley said from some distance still. She was briskly walking behind her sons. She was wearing a flowered apron with a wand sticking out of the pocket. "I took off some of the anti-muggle wards this morning, but people do get lost around here... And if some other muggles were to find us... I told Arthur to keep an eye out for you, but he was rushing to work... And he hasn't returned yet, but hopefully... before we sit down to dinner..."

"Oh, no, no," Mrs. Granger said right away, shaking her bushy head. "Please, don't go to any trouble. We must be off very soon-"

"Of course, we'll have an early dinner, so you'll have plenty of time to get home before dark."

After some introductions, she guided them towards the Burrow. The children and Mrs. Granger followed her, while her husband drove the car to the garage, guided by the twins. They stepped past a very rusty cauldron and a jumble of rubber boots stacked around the entrance.

Snuffles stayed next to Harry all the way there, but did not follow him in. Harry was about to invite him in, but the uncomfortable looks Mrs. Weasley was shooting towards the dog made him reconsider.

The smell of home-cooking permeated the house. Through the narrow, cluttered entryway, they could hear something bubbling on the stove.

"Oh, you really shouldn't have gone through the trouble-" Mrs. Granger began to say. She looked embarrassed about having put her hosts to work on her behalf.

"It's no trouble," Mrs. Weasley waved her off. "But I need to check on dinner..."

She tried to direct her guests to the living room, but they were all more interested in seeing a magical kitchen. There was a small, red-headed figure inside, who jumped to her feet as she saw the guests, mumbled a hasty greeting, and fled.

The kitchen did not disappoint. It was small and rather cramped, but there were oddities all around them. The spoon was stirring the saucepan on the stove all by itself, the ancient-looking radio next to the sink was announcing the Wizarding Wireless Network News, the books on the mantelpiece had titles like Charm Your Own Cheese and Enchantment In Baking. There was also a large clock on one of the walls with only one hand and no numbers at all. Written around the edge were things like Time to make tea, Time to feed the chickens, and You're late.

They sat down around the scrubbed wooden table in the middle of the room. Mrs. Granger looked a little intimidated, while Harry and Hermione could barely contain their excitement. But then, kitchen utensils flying through the air at the wave of a wand was a far more ordinary sight for them, after a year at Hogwarts.

Ron tried to question his friends, but his mother kept interrupting him, asking him to help her serve tea to her guests. Harry and Hermione got up to help him, despite his mother's protestations. Being shown how to light fire to boil water suddenly seemed a lot more interesting when done with the use of magic. Mrs. Granger made a jerky move to offer her help as well, but did not go through with it.

Her shyness did not last long, however. By the time her husband returned with the twins, it was he who was astonished at Hermione directing the floating teapot, while Jean accepted her cup quite calmly.

Meanwhile, Harry, Ron and Hermione were itching to talk about Dobby's warning. Ron only knew the basics Harry had managed to tell him in private the day of his rescue. Harry and Hermione, of course, had spent hours while unobserved going over each detail and coming up with different theories.

They all remembered their agreement not to talk about their adventures – for lack of a better word – in front of adults, however. So instead, they talked about safer topics. Ron told them about Percy behaving oddly all summer, locking himself in his room. Then Hermione told him about her and Harry's visit to Dudley at Artie's house.

"We went there this morning, so we could do all the visiting in one day," she said. "But we couldn't stay long-"

"I'm not sure we should have gone at all," Harry interrupted her. "Your parents had to make the extra journey and Artie's parents had to-"

"Oh, pish. You won't see Dudley again until summer. My parents didn't mind, and neither did Artie's, I think. He must have told them enough-"

"Oh, yeah. Dudders told his friend quite a sob story about me, to cover up that I'm a wizard-" Harry explained to Ron.

"It wasn't a sob story. He stayed very close to the truth, actually," Hermione said with a frown.

"Jut left out magic and told the rest as it is, huh?" said Ron. He and Hermione exchanged meaningful looks, much to Harry's annoyance.

"Pretty much," Hermione nodded. "He just said Harry goes to a school for 'gifted children'. Which is sort of true, actually."

"Gifted children?" Ron asked.

"Yes. It usually means children who are especially clever," Hermione explained. "There are no such schools in the UK, though, so I was worried Artie's parents might get a little suspicious-"

"Not bloody likely," said Ron.

"Not a chance," Harry said at the same time, causing a few giggles. "Not after they met you, Hermione. If they had any doubts before-"

At that moment they heard the door slam and went to look.

"Oh, no. She got to properly show off, didn't she?" groaned Ron. He did not try very hard not to be heard by Hermione.

"Oh, yes," said Harry, while Hermione scowled in indignation.

Everyone streamed towards the living room – Perccy and Ginny from upstairs and everyone else from the kitchen – crowding the sizeable room. The newly arrived Mr. Weasley walked in, followed by the twins, who had rushed to the door to greet him. He was a tall, thin man with glasses and red hair – what was left of it. His long, green robes were dusty and travel-worn and he looked tired, but he shook off his fatigue as soon as he spotted his guests, greeting them with an engaging smile.

They soon sat down to dinner. Mr. Weasley made sure to sit next to the elder Grangers so he could question them about life in the muggle world. They were very surprised when he told them later what his job at the Ministry entailed. Mrs. Weasley could not hold in a few choice comments on the topic of flying cars at that, and Harry learned that Ron and his brothers had indeed been in a lot of trouble over the incident – not to mention Mr. Weasley himself...

Harry was not sure when the conversation turned, but one moment Mrs. Weasley was complaining about her rowdy sons to the Grangers, and the next thing he knew, all adult eyes were on him.

"He really is such a polite boy, isn't he?" Mrs. Weasley was saying, clearly about him.

"He is, yes. He was a joy to have as a guest. Even more quiet than my daughter, and he always tried to help out..."

Harry smiled crookedly, feeling his face turn red. If only they knew how impatient he was to get both their children alone so he could involve them in his latest adventure... His friends, well aware of the direction of his thoughts, nudged him under the table. They did not dare look at each other, though, if they wanted to keep straight faces.

All through dinner, Mrs. Granger tried her best to engage the youngest Weasley child – and only girl – in conversation. Ginny only replied in monosyllables, and usually so quietly that Harry could not hear what she said. During the meal, she knocked over both a glass of pumpkin juice and a cup of tea.

Ron, watching the display, shook his head in bafflement. "You don't know how weird it is for her to be this shy. She never shuts up normally," he said.

Hermione looked at Ginny curiously. A short while later, she joined her mother's efforts, with slightly better results. Mrs. Granger sighed happily. As much as she was coming to like both of her daughter's friends, it would be nice if she could have a female friend as well – even an indirect one.

When evening fell and the Grangers slowly began to prepare to leave, Ron had a brilliant idea.

"What if you let Hermione stay for the night?" he asked. At the surprised looks he received, he went on to explain: "Well, we'll meet again tomorrow in Diagon Alley, won't we? So, so she could stay here tonight and go home with you tomorrow-"

"Thank you for the invitation, Ron," Mrs. Granger began, "but I don't think that's a good idea. There's no need to trouble your parents any more-"

"Oh, it wouldn't be any trouble at all," said Mrs. Weasley. "Ron's right. That is a good idea. Why not leave her here-"

"Thank you for the offer, but Hermione hasn't even brought any of her things. We don't want to impose-" began Mr. Weasley.

"She can sleep in my room," Ginny unexpectedly piped in, then turned scarlet with all eyes on her. She opened her mouth a few times again, to go on, but her voice would not obey.

Her offer – such as it was – was enough to win the argument. Hermione stayed.

Not much later, after they had watched her parents drive off, she, Harry and Ron were sitting on the doorstep of the broom shed, overlooking the paddock behind the Burrow. Snuffles sat at Harry's feet, content to stay still while the friends talked. It was late in the evening, the sun had long set and the light coming from the windows of the Burrow drew strange patterns on the garden ground.

Harry and Hermione were still giddy from their first experience of a magical home. The Burrow, with its crooked and twisted architecture; its clock that kept track of people instead of time; its rather rude, talking mirrors; its ghoul in the attic; they both agreed, was the best house in the world.

"I wish I could stay here for a few days, as well," Hermione said with a sigh.

She looked across the large garden. There were plenty of weeds, and the grass needed cutting but there were gnarled trees all around the walls, plants neither she nor Harry had ever seen spilling from every flower bed, and a big green pond full of frogs. In the semi-darkness, with the frog croaks the only sound that reached them, the Burrow seemed deceptively peaceful.

"Well, you'll still be here tomorrow," said Ron. "Sort of," he amended. "But Diagon Alley will be fun, too."

Hermione nodded. "I guess, yes." She sighed. "It's just, Harry and I still haven't come up with any useful ideas about that elf and if something were to happen now, when I won't be around..."

"Oh, about that. I was meaning to tell you. Fred and George think the whole thing might've been a prank from some Hogwarts student to scare Harry away. They might be right. Malfoy's from the sort of family who would own a house elf." Ron went on to explain a bit more, until Harry began to doubt whether he should take Dobby's warning seriously.

"Maybe we'll have a peaceful year at Hogwarts, then," said Hermione. "Would be interesting to see what that's like."

"With only Malfoy to worry about, huh?" said Ron. "And maybe Snape, and the rest of Slytherin House, and whatever remains of you-know-who and-"

"Oh, all right-"

"And Snuffles," Harry added quietly. The dog next to him lifted his head at hearing his name and barked.

"Snuffles? What do you mean?" asked Hermione.

Ron also began to say something, but then he shifted awkwardly.

"Well, where will he stay when I go to Hogwarts?" asked Harry, causing his friends to exchange chagrined looks.

"I guess... I guess, I could ask Mum if we can adopt him," Ron suggested a little sceptically. "She was a bit put off by him in the beginning, she worried that he'd eat the chickens, or break things inside the house, or something. But Snuffles is far too clever for that. So maybe..."

"No, Ron." Harry shook his head. "I can't ask you to do that. I'll think of something else. Or maybe Dudley can think of some way to get his parents to keep him." He put up a brave front when saying that, and tried to appear optimistic. Snuffles, as if in response to the subdued mood, nudged him playfully, trying to cheer him up. Harry's shoulders drooped. "What a silly dog you are," he told Snuffles as he scratched his head. "I'm about to let you become a stray again, and you want to play..."

"Maybe I could ask if I can take him along as my pet," Hermione suggested hesitantly. "We're all allowed one pet, and I don't have one-"

"We're only allowed owls, cats, or toads-"

"But Ron has Scabbers!" Hermione said triumphantly.

Ron blushed. "Yeah, that. Percy found him at Hogwarts and asked Professor McGonagall if he could keep him. I don't think she liked the idea much, but she didn't want to ask him to just get rid of him, so she allowed it. He's pretty small though, and all he ever does is sleep..."

"Still... It doesn't hurt to ask, right?" said Hermione.

"Go ahead, Hermione," said Harry. "It can't hurt to try. But, just in case..." He got up. His friends shot him curious looks. "I was thinking... Well, if I can't keep him – Or, even better, if I can – Well, either way, I think it's time I introduced him to Hedwig. I wanted to do that the whole time I was at the Dursleys' house, but I couldn't risk letting Hedwig out during the day..."

"Yes, let's do that," Hermione agreed, getting up. "And if it works, we can reintroduce Snuffles later to Hedwig as my pet."

Ron shook his head, but then he got up as well. "Alright, let's go."

"Wait here," Harry told Snuffles and followed his friends back to the Burrow.

Walking down the twisted staircase of the Burrow with Hedwig's cage in hand, they ran into Fred and George going up the stairs, who wanted to know what they were up to.

"You want Snuffles to meet Hedwig?" asked a surprised Fred when they told him. "You know they're just animals, right?"

Hedwig hooted at that moment, and to Harry it sounded rather indignant.

"Oh, I just remembered...," said Ron. "I'll be right back." He turned around and ran back up.

"And he might scare your bird," said George. "I know he doesn't eat the chickens, but..."

"Yeah, that's another thing. What're you going to say to Snuffles, 'Here's another bird you're not allowed to eat'?"

Harry scowled. "Snuffles is clever enough to figure that out on his own."

"Yeah, about that..." Fred frowned. "Sometimes, you know, you'll tell him something, and it's like he can understand every word-"

"And then, other times, you think he's got it, but he'll do the exact opposite of what you told him," finished George.

"What have you been telling him to do?" Hermione asked suspiciously.

"Oh, this and that..." Fred deliberated for a moment, then whispered something to his twin, who nodded in response. "Like, simple things. You ask him to push something out of the way, and he'll do it. He's really good at that. But every once in a while-"

"Are you telling them about yesterday?" asked Ron, who was already walking down the stairs towards them. "I was helping Dad fix the roof of the garage and suddenly I hear a loud bang," he explained to his friends. "I went out to see what it was. Those two were sprawled on the ground under the window, cursing Snuffles, who was sitting next to a rickety, overturned table. What were you trying to get him to do?" he asked his brothers.

Fred scowled, then sighed in resignation. "He was supposed to throw over the ladder. We got him to do it a dozen times before, but then he pushed over the table right under us instead-"

"The ladder? The one I needed to climb down again?" asked Ron.

"It was supposed to be a joke. We'd have let you down eventually-"

"It doesn't seem so funny to me." Hermione crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"Well, it was. Or would've been, if Snuffles had been a little smarter."

"Either that, or he's smarter than us. That snuffling of his – I could swear he's laughing at us." There was a pause. Then the twins shrugged and walked past them.

Snuffles, it turned out, was certainly clever enough not to scare Hedwig. He met them outside of the broom shed, on a patch of grass illuminated by the light coming from the Burrow's windows. He sat very still as Harry approached him with her on his arm. Hedwig fluttered her wings a little, as if to take off, but then, not perceiving a threat, she let herself be introduced.

"There, that settles it. Now they're friends," said Hermione and smiled.

"So, I was thinking..." Ron began to say, while he dug his hand in his pocket. "Scabbers has always been scared of dogs, but Snuffles is behaving so well right now-"

"Oh, did you bring your rat along?" asked Hermione. Ron nodded.

"Great idea, Ron," said Harry. "I didn't even think of that."

Ron pulled his pet rat out of his pocket, who was wriggling a lot more animatedly than usual. "Hold still, Scabbers, I'm trying to introduce you to Harry's dog..."

Snuffles tilted his head at the disruption, staring curiously at the rat in Ron's hand. Scabbers suddenly ceased all movement. So did Snuffles. For one long moment, both animals were caught in a transfixed stare, not averting their eyes from each other. Then Snuffles let out a low, deep growl, the likes of which Harry had never heard from him before.

Then everything happened very quickly. In one movement, Snuffles was up and charging at Ron. Scabbers bit and scratched at Ron's hand to get away. Hedwig gave an alarmed screech and took off. Harry and Hermione could only shout and scream, while Ron was tackled and fell, unable to jump out of the way in time. He let go of Scabbers, who crawled under his body. Snuffles was unrecognisable, all gentleness gone, he tried to push Ron out of the way.

Harry and Hermione drew their wands, firing spells to push Snuffles away. Scabbers appeared next to Ron; Snuffles got up to charge again, but he was too late.

Scabbers suddenly grew, transmogrified, until a very short, plump man stood where he had been barely a moment ago. He was holding Ron's wand. His thin, colourless hair was unkempt and there was a large bald patch on top. His skin looked grubby, almost like Scabbers's fur, and something of the rat lingered around his pointed nose, his very small, watery eyes.

"Expelliarmus!" he yelled, while Harry and Hermione stood frozen in shock, wand arms suspended uselessly in mid-air.

Snuffles halted mid-jump. He remained in a crouched position, ready for attack and went back to growling. Very slowly, the man pointed Ron's wand at him, while he stowed the other two wands in the pocket of his filthy outer robe.

"Show yourself," he squeaked, the hand pointing the wand at Snuffles visibly shaking. He looked around at them all, his breathing fast and shallow.

Ron emitted a wordless sound that was insufficient to express the horror he felt. Very slowly, Snuffles began to move towards him, not leaving the wand pointed at him out of sight.

"Show yourself!" the man demanded with more urgency. "No way I gave myself away like this for a common mongrel..." he muttered.

"Who... Who are you?" Ron asked and slowly sat up. He looked and sounded disgusted. The wand swivelled towards him.

"Don't move!" came the panicked squeak. "Never mind who I am. You should be asking who that is!" The wand moved back to Snuffles, who had moved next to Ron. "You, you stay back as well. And transform at once, or – or—" His mouth moved, but he did not finish the threat. Instead, he looked at the wand in concentration. "Now, how did that spell go..."

"How did you transform into a human?" asked Harry.

"He's an animagus. He must be," said Ron.

"A what?"

"An animagus, Harry. A wizard who can turn into an animal. Have you always been Scabbers?" Ron turned the question back to the wizard in front of him.

"Now, no need to sound so indignant. I was an excellent pet, wasn't I?" came the reply.

"Did you mean that Snuffles is human as well?" Hermione asked very quietly.

"Now, that's the question, isn't it? And a very particular human at that, if I'm right. Which we'll find out in just a moment." The man's already small eyes narrowed to slits, as he moved Ron's wand to point at Harry.

"If I am right, you crawled out of that hole to meet Harry, here," he spoke to Snuffles, who remained very still. "Staged your own death, am I right? Imagine that, the great Sirius Black, taking a leaf out of my book. What has the world come to?"

Ron and Harry drew in sharp breaths and Hermione gave a little shriek at the mention of that name.

"Oh, yes. I recognise you. I knew right away it was you, when I spotted you from Ron's window-" Ron emitted another disgusted sound at the reminder. "I said to myself, who else could this ugly, overgrown mutt be? Who else but you, _Padfoot_?" The dog growled ferociously, showing all his teeth.

At that moment, Harry spotted Hedwig approach behind the wizard. She was flying towards them silently, almost invisible in the semi-darkness. She landed on the roof of the shed, observing the scene.

"What a bother," the wizard went on. "Why couldn't you just have stayed dead? Did you know, I actually felt a little sad when I heard you had died..." His eyes darted back to Harry. "But of course not. This boy just has to mess everything up. Instead of pushing you over the edge, his letter helped you escape-"

Snuffles – or rather, Sirius – slowly got up and began moving towards Harry.

"Stay where you are!" the wizard shouted shilly. "Do as I said and I'll be reasonable-"

There seemed to be an implied threat to Harry. He exchanged glances with his friends, who were equally aware of the danger.

The dog looked around undecidedly for a moment, while everyone else remained still. Then he transformed as well, like Scabbers before him. The resulting human was the exact opposite, though. He was a very tall, very skinny man with deep, sunken eyes and long hair, wearing an incongruous, brightly coloured robe with stains on it.

"Pettigrew, stop pointing the wand at Harry. This is between us," he croaked. His voice sounded like he had not used it in a long time.

"Sirius, my old friend," Pettigrew said mockingly.

"Pettigrew? Peter Pettigrew? The wizard who tried to stop Black and was killed?" said Hermione.

"Are those our work robes from the garage?" Ron asked disbelievingly at the same time.

"Sorry, Ron. The Azkaban suit was... uh..." said Sirius.

"Anyone ever tell you you're far too clever for your own good, Hermione?" asked Pettigrew. "No matter. I'll – explain – right away, after I've dealt with this – murderer."

"All right," said Sirius. "You want to deal with me? You do that. Let's go. I'll come along without any fuss-"

"Oh, don't be paranoid. I don't mean these children any harm. They've been very entertaining to be around, actually. I won't hurt them. A little memory charm or two should do it-"

Harry decided things had gone far enough. With barely a half-glance, he let his friends know to be ready. Then he looked towards Hedwig, hoping to catch her eye. She was staring straight at him.

"Memory charms?" growled Sirius, sounding like the huge, scary dog he used to be. "Peter, do be reasonable! Modifying memories is far too tricky, far too dangerous-"

"You don't think me capable of them, is that it? You always had to know everything better, didn't you-"

Harry nodded at Hedwig and then tilted his head towards Pettigrew, who noticed the movement and turned towards him.

"Now!" shouted Harry.

Pettigrew tried to act, but he was too late. Hedwig flew straight at him, and before he could get rid of her, all three teenagers had tackled him. He fell on the grass. Harry threw himself on his wand arm. Pettigrew tried to kick and punch at them with his other arm and almost dislodged Harry.

Then Sirius also joined the fray. Harry fought free of the tangle of bodies and saw his and Hermione's wand rolling across the ground, where they had fallen out of Pettigrew's pocket. He was not the only one. Both wizards reached for them. Hermione and Ron had to jump out of the way to avoid getting squished.

Hedwig was faster than either of them. She grabbed them with her claws and lifted up high. She flew over to Harry, who scrambled away and caught the wands she dropped over his head.

"Stop!" Harry directed his wand at the two wizards. His friends scrambled to their feet and ran over to him. Harry handed Hermione her wand, who promptly pointed it at the men in front of them as well.

Both men stared at them, crouching on the ground, completely still. Pettigrew still had Ron's wand, which he kept pointed at Sirius, who looked ready to tackle the much shorter man, as soon as he was given the least opportunity. Harry looked at them, at the now cringing, scared face of Pettigrew, and the fathomless eyes of Sirius.

"You... you killed my parents..." He directed his words to Sirius, for all that Pettigrew had more recently been the threat. The man looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

"Yes, yes he did, Harry," squeaked Pettigrew. His breathing was fast and shallow, and sweat had broken out on his pasty face. "Help me restrain him. Go on, curse him, Harry!"

"You filthy, shameless liar. Believe what you want of me, Harry, but don't trust him. He was the one who betrayed your parents-"

"Who are you? What business did you have with Black?" Harry now turned to the shorter man, fully aware that he still had a wand in hand.

"He – he was supposed to have died a hero, Harry," Hermione spoke next to him. "I read, he went after Black when they found out he was a spy and confronted him. That's when Black is supposed to have blown up the street and killed a dozen people – including Pettigrew."

"And he did!" said Pettigrew. "He did all that. I just managed to – to hide away at the last moment. Please, stop pointing the wand at me, and help me restrain him. He's tried to kill me once, and now he's about to finish what he started," came Pettigrew's high-pitched whine.

"You were threatening us with memory charms a moment ago," said Harry. "How stupid do you think we are?"

"I – I just had to protect myself! If anyone knows I'm alive-"

"That's what I don't understand. If you're innocent and Mr. Black was the spy, why would you choose to live as a rat all these years?" asked Hermione.

"To hide from Sirius! I knew he'd come after me-" came the quick answer, but Harry could not help paying more attention to the ashen colour of Pettigrew's face, and the way his eyes darted towards the wand in Harry's hand. "And he has!" he went on in a shrill, panicked voice at the sceptical looks he received. "He's come to try and kill me!" he shrieked suddenly, pointing at Sirius with his other hand, and Harry noticed that he used his middle finger, because his index was missing.

"Your finger is missing!" Hermione said with a gasp. "Your finger... All they found..." she continued to mutter.

Harry did not know what she was talking about, but the men obviously did. Pettigrew's eyes widened in panic, while Sirius' lips twitched in something resembling a smile.

"Well spotted, Hermione. He cut it off himself, before he blew up the street and ran," said Sirius.

Pettigrew recoiled, his eyes darting between everyone present, turning the wand more towards the teenagers, becoming aware that he was not going to win that argument. Harry and Hermione prepared for a fight, while Ron and Sirius looked like they were ready to charge at Pettigrew, wand or no wand.

The man who used to be Scabbers raised his wand, as if ready to attack his former owner and his friends, but then he turned on the spot, and disapparated.

Sirius made a jerky, convulsive grab towards where Pettigrew used to stand, before folding in on himself. "He's gone. I let him get away again..." he muttered despodently.

"He used to sleep in my _bed_ ," Ron said with utter revulsion, staring at the same spot.

Harry walked over to Sirius, who did not move away from his crouched position on the grass. He pointed his wand at the wizard, looking down at him. Sirius stared up at him out of those sunken eyes.

"You killed my parents," said Harry, his voice shaking slightly, but his wand hand quite steady. "You didn't deny it a moment ago. But then you found me as – as Snuffles-" His voice caught at the name. "Was it out of guilt, then, that you helped me escape the Dursleys?"

"I won't deny I felt guilty – as I have reason to. But if you knew the whole story-" began Sirius.

"The whole story? You sold my parents to Voldemort, what else do I need to know? If you don't deny that-"

"You've got to listen to me," Sirius said with a new note of urgency in his voice. "You don't understand..."

"No, I don't. You befriended me as Snuffles, and helped me contact Hermione. And even now, you tried to protect us from Pettigrew – and what did _he_ have to do with all of this, anyway? But you don't deny that you-" Harry could not say it again. "But I saw you in the mirror..." he said instead, quietly, as if imparting a great secret.

"The mirror? You mean the Mirror of Erised?" asked Ron. "Together with your family?" he asked in astonishment when he saw Harry nod.

"Strange, isn't it? Dudders was also there, but not his parents. And this man..." Harry's voice broke.

"I never betrayed Lily and James," Sirius croaked. He did not understand the significance of Harry's revelation, but felt how important it must be by the teenagers' reaction. "I would have died before I betrayed them. Please, let me explain."

Harry held his gaze, unable to look away. Then, throat too tight to speak, he nodded, lowering his wand.

Sirius told them the whole tale, beginning with his Hogwarts years and the reason he and Pettigrew became animagi.

"So Padfoot's your name, then? You got so angry when Pettigrew called you that." Harry interrupted him as the name came up. "And I've been calling you Snuffles all this time!"

Sirius' gaunt face broke into the first true smile Harry had seen upon it. The difference it made was startling, as though a person ten years younger was shining through the starved mask; for a moment, he was recognisable as the man who had appeared in the Mirror of Erised.

"Feel free to continue calling me that. I especially liked your reason for choosing it," he said.

The tale went on. When his letter came up, Harry looked at Sirius to see his reaction. He was frowning, but not as though he was annoyed about it. He seemed to be pondering how to continue.

"I don't know what happened after I read it," he said slowly. "I think the only reason I never lost my mind is that I knew I was innocent. That wasn't a happy thought, so the dementors couldn't suck it out of me... but it kept me sane and knowing who I am... helped me keep my powers... so when it all became... too much... I could transform in my cell... become a dog. Dementors can't see, you know..." He swallowed. "They feel their way towards people by sensing their emotions... they could tell that my feelings were less – less human, less complex when I was a dog... but they thought, of course, that I was losing my mind like everyone else in there, so it didn't trouble them. But I was weak, very weak, and I had no hope of driving them away from me without a wand...

"But then, after I read your letter, all I could think about was that I had abandoned you... Suddenly I was no longer sure I was not at fault – for all that I was not a spy. I think... I think I lost my sanity for a little bit, there. Everything blurs together at that point, and I don't have any clear memories, until the feel of ice-cold water.

"The dementors must have thought me dead at some point, you see? So they did what they usually do with dead inmates – they threw me into the sea. Suddenly I was free, and with that thought returned clarity of mind, because I now had a purpose. It gave me the strength to swim to the shore."

Once the whole tale had been told, a hush fell over them, as Sirius sunk back in his memories and the adolescents tried to take in the extent of the betrayal they had been told about.

"I suppose this is goodbye now," Sirius said after a moment.

"What?" Harry could not believe his ears. "But I just met you – I mean..."

"I know," said Sirius with a sad smile. "But until I can prove my innocence, I can't live as a human, you have to see that." He sighed. "I'm going to search for Pettigrew. I've been meaning to do that ever since I found out he was the spy, but this time I won't try to kill him myself. I'll catch him, and take him to the authorities, and make him confess what he did. And then, I'll finally be able to really save you from the Dursleys, Harry," he finished.

Harry nodded, unable to speak. Then, on an impulse, he threw his arms around his godfather. Sirius froze for a moment, but then he hugged him back fiercely.

"Hedwig," Harry called, and his bird flew down from the roof of the shed where she had gone back to. "Remember him," he pointed Sirius out to her. "You'll have to find him wherever he's hiding, to carry my letters to him," he instructed her. She seemed to understand as she flew around Sirius several times, before taking off again.

Noises from the direction of the house were coming closer.

"Goodbye, Harry," Sirius said urgently. "I'll make sure to write. Ron, Hermione, it was great, meeting you." With those final parting words, he turned back into a dog – be it Snuffles or Padfoot – and ran.

Fred and George found them soon after.

"What are you doing out here, in the darkness?" asked George.

"Yeah, you were going to introduce your pets ages ago," said Fred.

"Oh, Snuffles has good taste and didn't like Scabbers, I'm afraid," Ron said in a mock-mournful tone. "He chased him off, and now has gone after him."

For some reason, Harry and Hermione, as well as Ron himself, thought this insanely funny. They cracked up, much to the confusion of the twins, who did not manage to get any more information out of them.


	4. Chapter 4

"If I may have your attention, please."

Dumbledore stepped into the staffroom where most of the teachers were already to be found. They were sitting – or floating, in Binns' case – in groups around the tables and the fireplace, some sipping tea, most engaged in chatter. Except for Severus, who was sitting alone in the farthest corner, looking through a thick volume. Dumbledore resisted the urge to sigh.

"As you all know, September 1st is next Tuesday, in exactly one week—" he began.

"Hence why we've all returned to the castle," said Severus, while putting his book down.

"You mean the rest of us have," came Minerva's not unexpected reply, much to Dumbledore's irritation. "You stayed here all summer again, didn't you?"

"I don't see how that is of any consequence—" Severus began to reply, but Dumbledore spoke over him.

"And I am happy to announce that I have finally found a new defence against the dark arts professor," he said, and was happy to note that all attention was now focussed on the topic at hand. "He... should be here any minute. I told him the meeting time and set the wards to let him in..."

"Who is he?" Filius was the first to ask, but his question was followed by several similar ones from the rest of the teachers.

"You'll find out in a moment, as soon as he arrives – whenever that may be..." Dumbledore added the last part under his breath. He could see Severus glower at him over the rim of the book he had picked up again. And after such behaviour he still refused to understand where the rumour that he wanted the defence position himself came from...

The teachers, used to Dumbledore's habits, did not try to get him to tell them – as they knew perfectly well that he would not. Instead, they began to speculate who it might be. Soon, other topics were added to the discussion. Pomona, who had acquired an obvious tan, began telling Poppy about her travel to France, while Aurora Sinistra and Septima Vector began discussing a recent paper that suggested a slightly different way to calculate the orbits of... one of the moons in the solar system, as far as Dumbledore could tell.

"Actually..." he said a heartbeat later. "Perhaps we should begin with the meeting without our new colleague. We do have a fair few points to cover, and..." He sighed, hoping not all of his worst fears about Lockhart's character would prove true.

It was almost an hour later and they had discussed most major points they needed to cover by then, when the flames in the fireplace turned green. Masterfully avoiding the soot, Gilderoy Lockhart stepped into the room, without even a stumble to dislodge the pointed wizard's hat set at a jaunty angle on top of his wavy hair. He smiled widely at his audience, his white teeth gleaming.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen – my dear new colleagues. Let me introduce myself—" he paused there, as if before the punchline of a joke, then laughed, "—as unnecessary as that may be. But in case some of you found it difficult to believe the news, let me assure you it's true. I, Gilderoy Lockhart, have agreed – with great pleasure – to take up the post of defence against the dark arts professor." He smiled at them all expectantly, waiting for the reaction.

Severus blinked disbelievingly. He sought Dumbledore's eyes, only to see his fears confirmed there. "You must be joking," he said with a disgusted look on his face.

"Severus... Not now," said Dumbledore.

Minerva, who looked like she had also wanted to say something, pressed her lips to a thin line. Despite her disapproving looks, she managed to hold back her comments.

Several other teachers – especially the female ones – had a slightly different reaction. Pomona, obviously flushed, went to shake his hand and introduce herself, followed by Poppy and Charity, and eventually even the more sceptical members of staff. Dumbledore had to nudge Severus more than once until he finally took the hint and submitted to a handshake as well – even if he refused to keep the scowl off his face.

It was Minerva, however, who would not stay silent. "You're late," she said as she shook Gilderoy's hand with pursed lips.

"Am I?" he replied with a vacant smile. "A few of my fans caught me on the way here, I'm afraid, and refused to let me go." He chuckled.

Dumbledore did not need to look, to know that Severus was cringing. He contained himself valiantly, however, until Lockhart began to ask none too subtle questions about Harry Potter. A moment later, Severus walked out the door without asking permission to leave, without saying goodbye, without so much as looking back. Dumbledore doubted that would be the last he would see of Severus that day, though.

He was right. He had barely arrived in his office a short while later and sat down behind his desk, when the gargoyle turned again and a furious Severus stormed his office. Minerva, who had followed him after the staff meeting to discuss a few more matters, got up from the chair opposite his desk and turned around, to see what the interruption was about.

"Severus, did you want a word with me?" Dumbledore asked pleasantly, which only made the surly potions master glower more at him.

"How could you hire that idiot?" he came straight to the point.

"He applied," replied, Dumbledore, who had no wish whatsoever to get into an argument. "In fact, he was the only one who applied," he added tiredly.

Severus' minor hesitation was enough for Minerva to say: "What, did you forget to hand in your application this year?"

Dumbledore suppressed a sigh and picked up a lemon drop instead, aware that there was little he could do but suffer through the developing bickering.

"Contrary to popular belief, I do not apply for the post every year. In fact, I have not applied since that very first year—"

"Then why, pray tell, are you complaining about Albus' appointment?"

"So you like him, then? Lockhart? You think he's the best candidate to teach such a vital subject—"

Minerva bristled. "Are you telling me you're more concerned about the welfare of the students than the rest of us?"

"You are perfectly well aware that there is exactly one reason Lockhart wanted that position. A certain student in your house—"

"Leave Mr. Potter out of this, please—"

"I'm afraid that won't be possible. All Lockhart wants is to be able to say that he taught the famous Harry Potter everything the brat knows about fighting the dark arts—"

"Do not insult my students, Severus. And I don't see – given your opinion of Mr. Potter – why it would bother you if Lockhart makes his life difficult this year—"

There had been a moment – a very insignificant little moment – at the end of the previous year, when Severus had questioned his opinion of Potter. With enough vehemence to convince himself most of all, he said, "Make his life difficult? Potter will love it. He will bask in the attention and become even more unmanageable than he already is—"

"I'll bet you anything he'll hate it! How you can blind yourself—"

The conviction in the Gryffindor was enough that the need to contradict her squashed his own doubts. "No, it's you, who's deluded herself into thinking that Potter is anything other than a disrespectful, attention-seeking—"

"Severus," warned Dumbledore.

"And I'd be willing to take you up on that bet, Minerva," Snape went on. "If Lockhart doesn't become Potter's favourite teacher within the month—"

"Enough!" said Dumbledore. "You may not make any bets involving students of this school, is that clear?" There was enough force behind his words to quell both teachers. "Now, was there anything other than Gilderoy's appointment that you wished to discuss?" Dumbledore breathed a sigh of relief when he found his office blissfully empty a few minutes later.

~HP~

Wednesday early in the morning, Mrs. Weasley used the sonorous charm to wake everyone up. Harry, who was sharing Ron's room, got up quickly, excited about the upcoming trip to Diagon Alley. Ron tried his best to continue snoozing, but his mother, who knew her children well, would not let up until everyone had made their way downstairs, with a fair bit of grumbling from some of them.

Harry and Ron met Hermione on the way down, who seemed to be chatting with Ginny. As soon as they spotted Harry, though, Ginny clammed up again.

A quick breakfast later, all the Weasleys and their two guests moved to the fireplace. Neither Harry, nor Hermione, had used the floo network before, so Fred and George went first, to demonstrate how it worked. Then it was their turn. Harry, who could tell that Hermione was no less worried than he was, chose to go first.

He tried to keep all the disjointed advice from the Weasleys in mind, but he swallowed a lot of hot ash when trying to pronounce his destination and stuttered. The next thing he knew, he found himself in a dimly lit wizard's shop – not at all where he had meant to go.

After witnessing Lucius Malfoy's visit to that shop with his son, he ran into a creepy aged witch, but was thankfully found by Hagrid at that point.

"Yer a mess!" said Hagrid gruffly, brushing soot off Harry so forcefully he nearly knocked him into a barrel of dragon dung outside an apothecary. "Skulkin' around Knockturn Alley, I dunno dodgy place, Harry – don' want no one ter see yeh down there—"

Harry explained what had happened while they set off together down the street. At the entrance of Gringotts, they spotted Hermione, who had managed to travel without incident and had already met up with her parents. The Weasleys were not far behind. Hagrid, who decided he would be safe enough at that point, said goodbye and left.

After getting money from the bank, they all separated. Percy muttered vaguely about needing a new quill. Fred and George had spotted their friend from Hogwarts, Lee Jordan. Mrs. Weasley and Ginny were going to a second-hand robe shop. Mr. Weasley was insisting on taking the elder Grangers off to the Leaky Cauldron for a drink.

"We'll all meet at Flourish and Blotts in an hour to buy your school books," said Mrs. Weasley, setting off with Ginny. "And not one step down Knockturn Alley!" she shouted at the twins' retreating backs.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione strolled off along the winding, cobbled street. Harry bought three large strawberry-and-peanut-butter ice creams, which they slurped happily as they wandered up the alley, examining the fascinating shop windows. Ron gazed longingly at a full set of Chudley Cannon robes in the windows of Quality Quidditch Supplies until Hermione dragged them off, only saying that they had something more important to take care of.

"What is it? Did you want to go in there?" asked Ron, pointing at the stationery shop next door.

Hermione hesitated, looking through the windows almost longingly, but shook her head. "No, that can wait. We need to buy your wand, Ron—"

The boys grimaced as they remembered how Pettigrew had stolen the wand the night before and apparated away with it to who knows where.

"But... I don't..." Ron mumbled something incomprehensible. "I can do that later, when we've met up with my parents," he said.

Hermione shook her head. "That won't do. You'd have to tell them how you lost it, but we've talked about it. We can't tell anyone about either Sirirus Black or Peter Pettigrew. They'd never believe us everything, but they might believe just enough to make things worse for Sirius—"

"Yeah, I know, but – but..." Ron scowled, then sighed. "I'll just have to come up with some other excuse, then—"

"Why wait? Come on, it'll be fun," said Harry. "It'll be easier to explain after, anyway. They won't ask as many questions once you already have a new wand—"

"Well, too bad," Ron interrupted exasperatedly. "But I can't do that. I don't have enough money for a wand," he said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. His voice had gone very quiet towards the end.

Harry blinked and exchanged a look with Hermione. "Well..." He thought quickly. "Well, it's because of my godfather that you need a new wand. So... I really think—"

"No—" Ron began to interrupt, having guessed where this was going.

"He's right, though." Hermione caught on quickly to Harry's scheme, but she still shot him an almost apologetic look as she said that, hoping he understood that she did not actually blame him. "You can't explain things to your parents because we need to keep Sirius safe. So really, it's the best solution." Seeing that Ron still looked unconvinced, Hermione threw up her arms. "You can't go to Hogwarts without a wand," she said.

Reluctantly, Ron followed his friends. They had to avoid being seen by several of his siblings. Fred and George almost spotted them from inside Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop, where they, together with Lee Jordan, were stocking up on Dr. Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks. Percy, whom they found in a tiny junk shop full of broken wands, lopsided brass scales, and old cloaks covered in potion stains, actually saw them, but he turned away, deeply immersed in some small and deeply boring-looking book.

Slowly, the hide-and-seek of doing something in secret began to cheer Ron up as well. They were all giddy by the time they managed to avoid all members of Ron's family and reach the wand shop.

A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside Ollivanders. The shop was exactly as they remembered: tiny and cramped with thousands of narrow boxes piled right up to the ceiling. Even the spindly chair still stood in its previous place. It was as if the ordinary changes time brought did not exist there. Harry's neck tingled from the very magic in the air.

"Good afternoon," Ollivander said in a soft voice, managing to catch them off guard.

They greeted him awkwardly.

"How... unexpected, to see you again this year, Mr. Potter and... Miss... I don't recall your name, but I'm sure I met you last year as well. Vine and dragon heartstring, wasn't it?"

"Ye-es," said Hermione.

"I never forget a wand I sell. But yours was indeed a very memorable moment. It is a rare occurrence indeed, when the wand responds as soon as its future owner steps into the shop. Now, Mr. Potter, here, was the exact opposite. But these things always happen at the pace that is right for the individual wand and its owner, of course." He hesitated a moment, directing his silvery, unblinking eyes at Ron. "I'm almost certain you are a Weasley, but I don't think we've met before. Have we?"

Ron's ears turned red. "Er, yes, Ron Weasley. And, no, we haven't, but I'd like to buy a wand now. Please," he said.

"And will this be your first wand?" Ollivander asked almost sternly. "I just saw a Weasley girl not ten minutes ago..."

The friends exchanged looks. It was clear, he was referring to Ginny. Lucky to have evaded Mrs. Weasley, they all cheered silently. Mr. Ollivander, however, was not to be distracted from his question. His piercing eyes bored into Ron, demanding an answer.

"N-no, it won't be my first wand. I – I used my brother's old wand in my first year." Ron almost stumbled over his words. His face turned a deep red. "But I, er, lost that one—"

"Your brother's wand? Ah, yes, I remember. One of the Weasley boys wanted a wand with a dragon heartstring core, because he was going to work with dragons. Not strictly necessary, of course. Every Ollivander wand is capable of producing all forms of magic. But if one is so inclined..."

He moved closer to Ron, pulling out a tape measure with silver markings from his pocket. "You are aware, of course, that each wand I sell needs to be registered and that I will not sell you a second wand without a very good reason."

"But he needs to have a wand!" said Hermione.

"It was my fault he lost it," added Harry. "So if there's a fine for it, or—"

"No, no. You misunderstand," said Ollivander, gesturing with his hands to calm down. His tape measure began to measure Ron on its own.

Harry and Hermione's voices, though by no means loud, still seemed to ring in the quiet of the shop, as if disturbing the threads of magic around them. They both blushed.

"I merely need a good reason," Ollivander went on as softly as before. "Your brother, for example, had his old wand re-registered in your name. Not what I would have recommended for a child's first wand..." If possible, Ron turned an even darker shade of red.

Ollivander did not seem to notice this, as he went on. "By the time he came here to buy his second wand, he no longer had its allegiance. Therefore, when I sold him his new wand, it became the only one with his allegiance, registered to his name—" He stopped the explanation, looking surprised. With a small wave, the tape measure returned to his hand. "Oh, I see. You've lost the allegiance of your former wand. That does make things simpler, of course," he said almost cheerfully.

With that issue out of the way, he turned towards the boxes. "Now, let me see..." He flitted around the shelves, taking down boxes, as he talked. "Your brother's old wand – it was ash and unicorn hair, wasn't it?" Not waiting for a reply, he went on. "And how did you get on with it? Ash does have a tendency to stay loyal to its first owner – especially when coupled with unicorn hair..."

"It was all right, I guess..." mumbled Ron. Harry and Hermione exchanged a look.

"Well, if it was all right..." Ollivander held out a wand for Ron to try, then snatched it back almost at once. He repeated the same thing a few more times. "I wonder..." he said quite happily now. He turned towards the shelves again. "Perhaps it's not merely that you were the wand's second owner, for all that it's supposed to fit your birthday. I always say, it is important to examine these things carefully, but people do like to follow old witches' tales when it comes to picking wands, rather than letting the wand choose its master..."

"How would a wand fit his birthday?" asked Hermione.

"The ancient Celtic tree calendar, Miss..."

"Granger," supplied Hermione.

"The Celtic tree calendar, Miss Granger, divides the year into thirteen lunar divisions and associates a different tree – wood – to each. And it is true that there is a certain resonance between such wands and their owners – as Mr. Potter, for example, can attest." He turned his piercing eyes towards Harry.

"Really? What's your wand made of?" Hermione asked Harry.

"Er, holly."

"But of course there are many other – far more important – criteria by which a wand chooses its owner. Your wand, for example, may not have corresponded to your birthday – unless you happen to be born in September – but there was no question that it was destined to be yours..." He turned around to continue searching his shelves.

Behind his back, Hermione switched her astonished gaze between Ron and Harry.

"Are you..." Ron mouthed silently.

Hermione nodded imperceptibly. The three friends exchanged thoughtful looks at the coincidence.

"Now, Mr. Weasley... Perhaps a change is in order to help bring out your potential..." Ollivander returned and brought another wand. "Willow and unicorn hair, fourteen inches. I think this might be..." He stopped talking as soon as Ron took it. "How very curious. I was sure... No matter, let me see..."

He took the wand back and brought out his tape measure again. A moment later, he drew a sharp breath, and the tape measure fell to the floor. "Very curious, indeed..." he muttered again and went back to the shelves.

"What's curious?" asked Ron, who was starting to get impatient.

"Your measurements – I could have sworn they were different a moment ago... Not to worry. I think... Yes... I think this one might be it." With those words, he produced a box from the very top of the shelf. By that point, there was a small pile of wands on the floor around him.

As soon as Ron took the wand, it glowed golden.

"Oh, well done, Mr. Weasley. It seems, it is to be ash after all. Also fourteen inches, with a unicorn hair core. It is lucky indeed that you came today, because I only finished making it a few days ago. I didn't even know yet how it was going to fare. Ash does have a tendency to be stubborn, and can sometimes become rather inflexible as it ages-"

"Oh, yeah, 'rowan gossips, chestnut drones, ash is stubborn, hazel moans'. I've heard that," said Ron with a self-depreciating little shrug.

"Yes, indeed. I have found there is a kernel of truth to that particular superstition as well."

While Harry paid for the wand, Ollivander looked them all over with a curious little smile. "You are very strange customers, I have to say. A pureblood, a half-blood and a muggleborn, with wands made of unicorn hair, phoenix feather and dragon heartstring cores and woods corresponding to your birthdays – at least in the first two cases." He paused, then looked at Hermione shrewdly. "Miss Granger, you didn't happen to mention your birthday, did you?"

"No," squeaked Hermione.

"Well, no matter," he said with a smile. "But it is very curious..."

Once they left the shop, it was almost time to head to Flourish and Blotts. They started walking towards it, but before they reached the bookshop, Ron slowed down, regarding his new wand unhappily.

"It's only a few days until school," said Harry. "With any luck, they won't even notice that you have a different wand if you don't say anything."

"Right. They won't notice that my wand is suddenly a couple inches longer and disgustingly new." He shook the wand vehemently, making it emit strange noises. "It's even made from fresh wood, for Merlin's sake! And there's not a single scratch on it..."

It really was a beautiful wand. It was ridiculous – in a really not funny way – that it should make Ron so unhappy.

"Well... well, they won't notice it if you don't have it with you," suggested Hermione.

"And what do you suppose I should do with it? Return it?" Incongruously, Ron held the wand closer to him in a protective gesture, not at all willing to part from it all of a sudden.

"Of course not. I just thought... I could take it home with me. Then, if you tell your parents that I borrowed your wand and forgot to return it, you'll be telling the truth – almost."

Ron did not seem keen on that idea, until he spotted the first red head in the crowd outside of Flourish and Blotts. Then he shoved his brand-new wand into Hermione's hands. "Okay, fine, you keep it," he said hastily. "And keep it safe. And out of sight."

"Of course," said Hermione and safely stowed it in her bag, just before Mrs. Weasley saw them from her spot in the queue and waved them over.

After an eventful encounter with Gilderoy Lockhart, their new defence teacher, and the Malfoys – which had ended with Mr. Weasley brawling with Lucius Malfoy until Hagrid broke them up – a much more subdued group of Weasleys, Grangers and Harry headed to the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione and her parents left the pub for the muggle street, while Harry once again had to travel by floo back to the Burrow.

The end of the summer break was around the corner. On their last evening, Mrs. Weasley conjured up a sumptuous dinner that included all of Harry's favourite things, ending with a mouthwatering treacle pudding. Fred and George rounded off the evening with a display of Filibuster fireworks; they filled the kitchen with red and blue stars that bounced from ceiling to wall for at least half an hour. Then it was time for a last mug of hot chocolate and bed.

It took a long while to get started the next morning. Even though they were all up at dawn, they were running very late by the time they all got into the flying Ford Anglia. To make matters worse, they had to stop and turn back a few times, because somehow everyone kept remembering more things they needed to take to Hogwarts. Once Ginny had also grabbed her diary, they were finally off.

They reached King's Cross at a quarter to eleven. Mr. Weasley dashed across the road to get trolleys for their trunks and they all hurried into the station. They all had to walk through the barrier one by one, so as not to be spotted by the muggles around them. Ron and Harry were the last ones to go through, but unexpectedly, they found the barrier closed.

Later, they would both insist that at the time it had seemed like a good idea – and only solution they could think of – to fly to Hogwarts in the Ford Anglia.

A few hours later, they were sticky and sweaty, and the fun had definitely worn off. The worst was yet to come, though. Towards the evening, the engine began to whine. It finally died as they were flying over the lake. They fell – and Ron had never wished his wand with him as he did then – to no avail. They crashed into the Whomping Willow and barely evaded its violent branches. The car obeyed one more time and got them out of its reach. Then it spit them out, followed by their luggage, and drove off into the darkness.

"Can you believe our luck?" said Ron miserably. "Of all the trees we could've hit, we had to get one that hits back." He glanced over his shoulder at the ancient tree, which was still flailing its branches threateningly.

"Come on," said Harry wearily, "we'd better get up to the school..."

It was not the triumphant arrival they had pictured. Stiff, cold, and bruised, they seized the ends of their trunks and began dragging them up the grassy slope, toward the great oak front doors.

"I think the feast's already started," said Ron, dropping his trunk at the foot of the front steps and crossing quietly to look through a brightly lit window. "Hey, Harry, come and look – it's the sorting!"

Harry hurried over and, together, he and Ron peered in at the Great Hall. Through the forest of pointed black Hogwarts hats, Harry saw a long line of scared-looking first years filing into the Hall. Ginny was among them, easily visible because of her vivid Weasley hair. Meanwhile, Professor McGonagall was placing the Sorting Hat on a stool before the newcomers.

A very small, mousy-haired boy had been called forward to place the hat on his head. Harry's eyes wandered past him to where Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, sat watching the sorting from the staff table, his long silver beard and half-moon glasses shining brightly in the candlelight. Several seats along, Harry saw Gilderoy Lockhart, dressed in robes of aquamarine. And there at the end was Hagrid, huge and hairy, drinking deeply from his goblet.

"Hang on..." Harry muttered to Ron. "There's an empty chair at the staff table... Where's Snape?"

"Maybe he's ill!" said Ron hopefully. Then he grimaced. "Why can't Lockhart be ill as well?"

"Maybe he's left," said Harry, "because the defence against the dark arts job went to that idiot instead of him!"

"Or he might be planning how to get rid of Lockhart!" said Ron enthusiastically. "Like he did with Quirrel last year—"

"Or maybe," said a cold voice right behind them, "he's waiting to hear why you two didn't arrive on the school train."

Harry spun around. There, his black robes rippling in a cold breeze, stood Severus Snape, scowling in a way that told Harry he and Ron were in very deep trouble. Every hope he had had that the events of the previous year might have changed the potions master's attitude towards them, evaporated.

"Follow me," said Snape, and led them away from the entrance hall down into the cold dungeons.

They entered Snape's office, shivering. The shadowy walls were lined with shelves of large glass jars, in which floated all manner of revolting things Harry did not really want to know the name of at the moment. The fireplace was dark and empty. Snape closed the door and turned to look at them.

"So," he said softly, "the train isn't good enough for the famous Harry Potter and his faithful sidekick Weasley. Wanted to arrive with a bang, did we, boys? Couldn't let another celebrity outshine you, could you?"

Harry's heart sank, as he realised how much of their comments Snape must have heard. "We didn't do it for the attention. We didn't have any other choice!"

"You didn't have any other choice than to arrive in a flying car, of course you didn't. What have you done with the car?"

Ron gulped. This was not the first time Snape had given Harry the impression of being able to read minds. But a moment later, he understood, as Snape unrolled the day's issue of the Evening Prophet.

"You were seen," he hissed, showing them the headline: FLYING FORD ANGLIA MYSTIFIES MUGGLES. He began to read aloud: "Two Muggles in London, convinced they saw an old car flying over the Post Office tower... at noon in Norfolk, Mrs. Hetty Bayliss, while hanging out her washing... Mr. Angus Fleet, of Peebles, reported to police... Six or seven Muggles in all. I believe your father works in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office?" he said, looking up at Ron and smiling nastily. "Dear, dear... his own son..."

Harry felt as though he had just been walloped in the stomach by one of the mad tree's larger branches. If anyone found out Mr. Weasley had bewitched the car... he had not thought of that...

"I noticed, in my search of the park, that considerable damage seems to have been done to a very valuable Whomping Willow," Snape went on.

"That tree did more damage to us than we—" Ron blurted out.

"You were looking for us?" Harry asked at the same time, feeling dismayed. He had not considered that their actions might worry people, either. And if even Snape – who had admittedly been trying to keep him alive all of last year, but who otherwise hated him – had been worried, what about the other teachers? What about Ron's family? And Hermione?

Harry's words made Snape pause. Something in the boy's expression, or his suddenly meek tone spoke of remorse, rather than simple regret at being caught. The realisation did not make him any happier, though. The last traces of his vindictive smile disappeared, to be replaced by a deep scowl. "Most unfortunately, you are not in my House and the decision to punish you does not rest with me. I shall go and fetch the people who do have that happy power. You will wait here."

White-faced and feeling rather sick, the boys next faced McGonagall and Dumbledore, who were more angry and disappointed with them than either had ever wanted to experience. They did avoid losing House points, but were told they would be serving detention.

Finally dismissed, they made their way to Gryffindor Tower. Despite not knowing the password, they did not have to wait long to get in. Almost as soon as they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, they heard hurrying footsteps behind them and turned to see Hermione dashing toward them. She handed Ron his wand as soon as she reached them.

"There you are! Where have you been? I was so worried when I couldn't find you on the train. And Ron, without your wand... The most ridiculous rumours – someone said you'd been expelled for crashing a flying car."

Before they could tell her much, or listen to her lecture them, the portrait swung open, and the boys were greeted by a storm of clapping. Everyone, even older students, congratulated them on their adventure. The only exceptions were Hermione and Ron's prefect brother, Percy. Harry and Ron soon said goodnight and went upstairs to their dormitory, to avoid being told off. There, the other boys in their dorm continued with the congratulations.

Ron grinned guiltily at Harry. "I know I shouldn't've enjoyed that or anything, but—"

Harry could not help it. He grinned, too. But somewhere in the back of his mind, he still remembered that he had said to Snape he had not done it for attention.


	5. Chapter 5

On the eve of the first day back at Hogwarts, Harry climbed the many stairs up to the owlery, letters in hand. Hermione and Ron were walking a step behind him. As soon as Hedwig spotted them, perched high up close to the ceiling, she gave a particularly loud screech and took off.

"Guess she's still mad at me," grumbled Harry.

The other owls, many of which had been slumbering, were not impressed by the sudden intrusion either and began causing quite a racket in response.

"Hedwig, come on, I need you to carry these letters," said Harry, while he tried to get closer to her without stepping into anything … unpalatable.

"Not that you don't have every right to be mad at him-" Hermione began to say to Hedwig. Harry shot her an annoyed look, but she ignored him. "You do. I mean, crashing you into a tree, cage and all—"

"Hermione, are you trying to help at all?" asked Ron.

"I am," she said, holding her nose high into the air. The boys rolled their eyes at her behind her back. "I'm trying to be understanding. You can't just expect her to forgive you as soon as you need her—"

"Hermione—" Harry threw his arms up in the air. "What do you want me to do? Use another owl?"

"Don't be silly! Hedwig would never forgive you for _that_!"

Harry had to admit that she was probably right. He also doubted any other owl would be able to find the recipient of the letter which was only addressed to 'Snuffles'. He pulled out the owl treats he had brought with him and went back to begging.

"Come, on, Hedwig. Don't you want to see Dudders again? You haven't carried letters to him for months now. You haven't carried letters, period!"

That last one finally seemed to catch her interest. She hesitantly flew a loop around his head, but then went back to sit in one of the highest owl nests.

"Ugh, this might take a while." Ron looked around for a place to sit. He settled on a wide windowsill – window being a relative term for what was essentially a hole in the wall, easily a hundred feet above the ground – and cleaned it with a haphazard cleaning charm. "I'm knackered," he said, while he sat down and leaned his head back against the wall. "First that howler from Mum, and then..."

Hermione threw a disgusted look at the windowsill, before sitting down next to Ron – but only after cleaning it properly. "It wasn't so bad." At Ron's incredulous look, she conceded: "Well, herbology was a bit tiring, I guess. My mandrakes just didn't want to be re-potted."

"Herbology?" Ron said with a disgusted look. "What about defence? Those bloody pixies—"

"Oh, they weren't so bad. A freezing charm or two was all we needed—"

"If you knew it, that is," grumbled Ron. "Lockhart sure didn't seem like he did."

"That's ridiculous! With all the things he's done—"

"Says he's done—"

"—you don't think he'd know a second year charm?"

"Is it a second year charm?" Ron switched the topic, feeling too tired to argue. "I haven't seen it before."

"It is. It's in our charms book."

"Let me guess. At the very end, am I right?"

"Well..." Hermione made a small preening motion. "It's possible."

"All right, I think we're getting somewhere," said Harry. He came over with Hedwig sat on his arm. She accepted a treat from his hand, but flapped her wings at his hand when he tried to pet her. "Still mad at me though, huh?"

"Have you tied the letters to her?" asked Hermione.

"Yes. Just the notice-me-not charm left to do, and she's ready to go..." Harry grabbed for his wand.

"Let me," said Hermione. "I managed to learn the proper one over the summer. Just in case Dobby is still watching your mail."

"Thanks, Hermione. If that mad house elf is still reading my letters... It's so annoying that I can't write what I actually want to. I only wrote Dudders that Snuffles ran away and I don't use any names at all in Sirius' letter – except for Snuffles, of course."

"Dobby'll think you barmy if he reads those letters – writing to your pet dog," grinned Ron.

Hermione cast the charm and Hedwig flew away through the window.

"I hope she doesn't get hurt again, like last time," said Harry, while watching her get smaller and smaller towards the horizon. "I tried looking something up in Viridian's book, but there doesn't seem to be anything useful for protection, just a bunch of nasty curses..."

"I'll try to learn some more powerful charms. And there's these things, called wards, but they seem very advanced—"

"Blimey, Hermione, school's barely begun, and you're already planning to do extra work?" groaned Ron.

"It's not even school work!" Hermione rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I was planning to look up wands – wandlore? – anyway, so when I go to the library tomorrow—"

"Oh, no. We've lost her," Ron mock-whispered to Harry, who giggled, but then shook his head ruefully.

"I don't think I'll get out of learning some extra charms myself," he said. "I can't let Hedwig get hurt again."

Ron's shoulders fell and he scratched at his nose embarrassedly. "Actually, I was thinking..." he trailed off.

"Yeah?" asked Harry.

"Uh, Hermione," Ron turned towards the girl instead. "Could you teach me that charm as well?"

"Sure, Ron," she replied, surprised but pleased. "Not that I'm not happy that you want to learn more, but what brought it on?"

"I was just thinking – my wand..." Ron trailed off again, but his friends caught on quickly what he was talking about. "Actually, could I do that?" he asked after a beat. "Could I cast the charm on my own wand?"

"I don't see why not," said Hermione. "I'm sure I can figure it out, and until then, I can cast it for you." And she promptly did just that.

Hedwig returned early the next morning, during breakfast, carrying several letters. Ron, as instructed, began distracting Hermione as soon as they saw her fly into the Great Hall.

"So, Hermione. You know those beetles we had to turn into buttons yesterday?" he began to say, and Harry had to admire his self-sacrifice, choosing to discuss transfiguration voluntarily with Hermione.

"Oh, yes. That was a nice class, wasn't it?"

Harry could imagine Ron trying not to grimace at that, while he worked to untie the letters from Hedwig's talons. McGonagall's lessons were never fun and easy, but the first lesson back the day before had been especially difficult. Even though Harry had been able to do his homework over the summer with Dudley's help, he had realised that he had forgotten more than he had thought. It had taken him the whole hour to successfully transfigure a beetle into a button.

"Not what I'd call it," grumbled Ron. "My beetle just didn't want to be transfigured, I think. You'll have to explain to me how it works."

"But didn't you show me the transfigured button yesterday?"

Harry hastily took all three letters – one in Dudley's familiar scrawl, one in a still unfamiliar sophisticated cursive hand, and the final in official block writing. It was that third one that he hastily shoved between the covers of his charms book, before turning towards his friends.

"McGonagall helped him with that one," Harry said to Hermione.

Ron shot him an annoyed look. "She crept up on me, and she was like, 'What are you doing with that beetle, Mr. Weasley?' in that voice of hers—"

"So basically, she scared him into doing it," finished Harry. It did feel a bit wrong to tease Ron just after he had helped him, but seeing Ron's face turn beet red made it worth it.

"I was not scared."

"You nearly jumped out of your skin. That's what made your wand go off and next thing you know, you have a button on your desk—"

"All right, Harry?" Colin Creevey, a first-year boy in their house and Harry's fan, waved to him as he passed the table and sat down far too close to them for his liking.

"Hello, Colin," Harry greeted back, smile slipping from his face. It still made the younger boy's face glow. He had a feeling this was going to get old very quickly.

They finished breakfast quickly after that, mostly so Harry could get away before Colin could demand any more signed photographs, like he had done the day before. Harry opened his letters as soon as they were out of earshot of the Great Hall. Dudley's letter contained no surprises. His cousin was expectedly saddened at the news of Snuffles' disappearance and a bit jealous of the flying car fiasco. Other than that, the letter just told Harry about Dudley's journey back to Smeltings – which was a lot less exciting than Harry's had been.

Harry passed that letter on to his friends – who were, as usual, interested to hear about Dudley's life – and then moved on to Sirius' letter.

_Dear Harry,_ it read,

_Thank you for sending parchment and quill along with your letter. Very thoughtful of you. Proved very useful, as I'm not currently at a location to easily get hold of those. Also great foresight to have cast a notice-me-not charm. Still, it's probably just as well you didn't use any names. I won't tell you any more details about my location/plans for the same reason._

_I'm a bit concerned that the barrier closed early. That never happens. I don't want to worry you, but it would have taken quite powerful magic to have done that. I agreed with Ron before this that the whole story with the house elf might have been a prank, but now I'm no longer sure. Keep your eyes open._

_That story about the flying Ford Anglia, though – I have to admit, it made my day. It's a shame the dementors made me want to be more responsible, because a large part of me just wants to tell you how much your dad would have loved that – the whole reckless, showy, beautiful thing. Me, though –_ (several words were scratched out) _it Confound it, I'm still proud of you – I'll try responsible next time._

_I have to admit it's odd that you're worried about Snape's opinion. I don't think it will come as much of a surprise that your dad was not the only one who was at odds with Snape. We all were. Our whole group used to have the same friends and enemies – until a traitorous rat decided to change all that._

_After listening all summer to the two of you and hearing about the sorts of things you have forgiven your cousin, it shouldn't have come as a surprise to me, I guess, that you'd actually want to better Snape's opinion of you – as much as you can – rather than just get him to lay off you._

_I'll try not to bring up my opinion of Snape – as much as I can. I'm truly impressed with your ability to forgive and even befriend people who meant you ill before. I can't say I'd have picked Snape, of all people, to try to get along with, but if that's what you want, I'll try my best to be supportive – or at least not to be discouraging. I'm just sorry he's probably making you pay for things your dad and I did._

_Speaking of Dudley, I don't know what he used to be like before, but he seemed a good kid when I met him. I'm sorry you'll have to worry him on my behalf, telling him I 'ran away'._

_So, I may have written a bit too much – and some of it not meant for hostile ears – I really need to work on that whole responsibility business. In the mean time, I tried warding the letter as well as I could without a wand._

_All the best,_

_Snuffles_

_(Woof!)_

"...Harry? Harry!"

Harry finally raised his head, realising that his friends had been talking to him. He lowered the parchment clutched in his hands that he had read and then re-read and had still been staring at after.

"So? What did—" Hermione looked around to make sure they were not being overheard. "—Sirius write?"

Harry hesitated a moment to hand over the letter, despite his friends' curious faces. The words 'thoughtful', 'proud', and 'impressed' were still swimming in front of his eyes. But that bit about the barrier needed to be shared. He handed the parchment over to Hermione, and Ron looked over her shoulder while they both read it.

Hermione hummed when she reached the end. "That's a nice letter – even though he's encouraging you to break rules and hate teachers..."

"He's very sure the barrier shouldn't have closed early," said Ron. "But he believed you that it happened, at least." He shot Hermione a look.

She returned it with a look of her own. "I never said I didn't believe you. And anyway, you didn't think it was anything to worry about, either. But Sirius thinks it might be... Do you think Dobby might have done that as well? Or maybe it's part of whatever danger there's supposed to be at Hogwarts?"

Harry shook his head. "Probably Dobby. Whatever it is, is supposed to be at Hogwarts, not King's Cross."

Harry was hoping he would have a moment undisturbed to open the third letter, but the day dragged on, and no opportunity presented itself. Classes left little time for anything else, anyway, but with one thing and another, and with having to keep it secret from Hermione, it was not until he went up a little early to his dorm room that he finally pulled out the envelope from his charms book.

Ron came in soon after. "So, did it arrive, then? Do you have it?" he asked eagerly.

Harry waved the parchment in front of Ron's nose. "Already filled it in. I'll just have to remember to take it up to the owlery before Hermione wakes up."

The boys grinned at each other.

"Here, you can take mine along as well," said Ron, while handing over a letter of his own.

"All right. And for the other thing, I was thinking we could ask Hagrid-"

"Yeah, we'll see him on Saturday-"

"But Hermione will be with us the whole time. But you can distract—" Harry began to say.

"Oh, no. You do it this time," Ron interrupted before he could finish, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Do what?" asked Dean Thomas, who had walked in with Seamus Finnegan.

"Nothing," both boys said simultaneously – and a tad suspiciously.

Friday morning, Harry got up at the crack of dawn to go down to the owlery, both his and Ron's letters in hand. He was a little worried about Hedwig, still not sure if she had forgiven him, but when he got there, he discovered an altogether different problem waiting for him.

Gilderoy Lockhart was there, directing a half dozen owls who were together carrying a sizeable package through one of the larger windows of the owlery. He winked at Harry as soon as he noticed Harry had entered.

"Fan mail," he said with a roguish grin once the post had successfully landed.

Harry, who had tried his best to dodge Lockhart all week, silently groaned. Was it not enough that he was about to have a class with the annoying git? he asked himself. He tried his best to ignore Lockhart as he first found Hedwig and sent her off with his letter. At least she knew when not to make a fuss, he thought gratefully. Quickly, he began to look for a school owl for Ron's letter.

"Very smart of you, Harry, not to use your owl to carry replies to fans," Lockhart commented, observing him. "You never know what sorts of tracking spells people might put on owls to find out more about you."

For a second, Harry almost asked him about those, but the moment of insanity passed. "I'm not sending letters to fans. That was one of my friends' letters I was asked to send," he said instead.

Lockhart smiled knowingly. "Whatever you say, Harry. But know that there is no need to feel ashamed even if you only have one fan mail to reply to. I know you probably think, it's easy for him to say, he gets several dozen every day, but it's a start, Harry. It's a start," he said, reminding Harry of the little speech he had given him on the first day back, when he had taken Harry aside during his herbology class – without Professor Sprout's permission – to give him some unwished-for advise.

Harry fled the owlery as soon as the owl had taken off.

Unfortunately, it did not end there. On his way back into the Gryffindor common room, Colin ran into him, his camera swinging madly around his neck. "Morning, Harry. Oh, wow, you're up early. Did you just come back from the owlery? I saw you leave with letters in hand earlier—" he went on to explain his unexpectedly correct guess, oblivious to Harry's stutters. "And I thought, what a good idea. I thought of going with you – because I've never sent a letter with an owl before and I thought you could show me how – but then I had to go grab the letter first—" He waved a thick envelope in Harry's face. "I wrote it yesterday and I wrote my parents and my brother everything about Hogwarts and lots about you, too, Harry—"

Harry noticed that his friends had entered the common room and were walking over to him. For one moment, he felt relief, hoping they would help him to extricate himself from Colin, but then he noticed Hermione's curious stare and silently groaned.

"You went to the owlery this morning?" she asked him.

Harry exchanged dismayed looks with Ron, as they both stuttered through some very bad excuses. Hermione let it go, but did not look happy about it, as they walked down to breakfast.

Things could still have blown over, had they not had a defence class that day. The first thing Harry did, was to see if there were any covered cages anywhere in the room and felt relieved when he did not spot any. Lockhart had had enough of pixies, it seemed. Instead of presenting them with any more live creatures, he decided to read them a passage from Voyages with Vampires.

Harry again decided to disappear behind the mountain of Lockhart's books that he had piled up on his desk and, as covertly as he could manage, began working on his transfiguration essay. He had almost managed to tune Lockhart out and was beginning to think that the lesson might be bearable that way, when he noticed something new was happening. Several of his classmates were raising their hands and shouts of, "Me, please," and "Please pick me," could be hard.

"I think I'll pick..." Lockhart began to say, building the anticipation. "Harry, please!" said Lockhart, even though Hermione's hand next to Harry – among several others – was straight up in the air. "Now, enough letter writing, young man," he went on, sounding fondly exasperated, rather than angry. "Come up here, please. You'll make the perfect assistant, if you don't feel engaged enough in class yet."

"Good luck," Ron whispered as he passed him, earning himself a glare from Hermione.

It turned out, Lockhart wanted Harry to help him act out scenes from the book. Harry was told he was going to be a Transylvanian villager suffering from a Babbling Curse, and he had to talk gibberish and pretend he was unable to stop himself, until Lockhart was satisfied that it looked convincing, much to Harry's humiliation. Only then did Lockhart finally deign to act his own part and pretend to 'cure' him.

Face burning with embarrassment, Harry sat back down in his seat. But it was not over yet.

"What was so important that it couldn't wait until after class?" Hermione started berating him for writing during Lockhart's lesson, before they had left the classroom.

"Miss... Granger," Lockhart said from behind them, making them jump. "Don't worry on Harry's behalf. I understand perfectly how important such letters can seem. I assure you, he's not in trouble," he said genially, gripping Harry's shoulders and giving him a little shake.

"Er, yeah, great," said Harry, wanting to leave at once. He did not need Lockhart mentioning letters around Hermione as well.

His friend would not stand by without defending him, though, for all that she had been the one berating him a moment ago. "But... Harry wasn't writing a letter, he was doing homework," she said. "Not that that's better, of course. I was just telling him that he should've been paying attention—"

Lockhart chuckled. "Yes, of course he was doing homework," he said, giving Harry a wink.

Ron, catching on that Lockhart knew something, shot Harry an alarmed look, who just grimaced back.

"Don't worry, Miss Granger. I know what it's like when one first develops a taste for being a celebrity. Now, your friend may seem at times a tad bigheaded to you, as he begins to learn the ropes of publicity and devotes more time to his fans, but of course as he's more important than you, it's your duty as his friend to be supportive." He chortled and then finally strode off.

Harry did not dare look at Hermione. Instead, he sought Ron's eyes, which only confirmed that he had not imagined what had happened.

"Hermione..." he began.

"What letter was he talking about?" she asked.

Her voice sounded normal, so Harry dared a glance at her. She looked bewildered more than anything.

"Er, n-nothing, I don't know—" Harry stopped talking as he saw the scowl settle on Hermione's face.

"Look, Harry, first Colin this morning, and now Professor Lockhart – well, if you don't want to tell me something, that's of course your business – though why you'd be fine with everyone else knowing – but at least don't pretend there's nothing there. Ron, you agree, he's keeping a secret, don't you?"

Ron, put on the spot, began to stutter, making Hermione even more suspicious, and then finally hurt. "So you know it, too? Am I the only one—"

"Hermione—" Harry shot Ron a desperate look. The boys grimaced and nodded to each other.

Hermione looked between them suspiciously.

"We – that is, Ron and I, wanted to do a little something for your birthday..." Harry finally said resignedly.

"And yeah, you're the one who wasn't supposed to know, obviously," said Ron. "It was supposed to be a surprise. But that git just had to ruin it." He scowled, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"You... Really?" Hermione smiled disbelievingly, happiness slowly creeping into her expression.

"Yeah, well..." Harry shuffled his feet. "You did tell us your birthday. So... Well, this morning, I sent the filled in form for another catalogue, and Ron wrote home, and we were going to ask Hagrid if we could, maybe, have a picnic or something. I mean, if you were Ron, we could go flying, or something, but... Well, that's it. We don't have any more plans yet."

"That's – oh, I—" Hermione stopped talking as she suddenly teared up. She threw her arms around Harry, and then Ron. "How did you keep it secret for so long?" she asked a bit later, with a teary giggle.

"We didn't, did we?" grumbled Ron. "We only managed to get a couple letters past you, before that git ruined everything."

"He's not a git—" she said, and received two angry glares in return. "And he didn't ruin anything! I'm so happy you did this for me—"

"Well, we haven't done much of anything yet, and the surprise is definitely ruined," said Harry, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. "First Colin and then him! I wish they'd both leave me alone!"

"What was it anyway that he found out? What he said was..." Hermione trailed off.

"Horrible? Stupid? No one who's met Harry could've thought that?" supplied Ron.

Hermione frowned at him, but there was no heat behind it. Her trust in Lockhart had received at least a little dent.

Harry told them briefly of his encounter with Lockhart earlier that morning.

"And he thought you were replying to fan post?" asked Hermione disbelievingly. "Didn't you at least tell him—"

"Of course I did," Harry said exasperatedly. "I've been trying to tell him ever since he first met me at Flourish and Blott's. It's like he wants to think the worst of me – but then he acts like it's normal that I'd be like that – try to become more famous, and so on – and he gives me advice—"

"Well, maybe he's really trying to help you. He obviously likes being a celebrity, so—"

"Or, maybe, he's just jealous," Ron said confidently. "He really hates it that Harry's more famous than him and is nasty to him on purpose."

Even Harry found that a bit hard to believe, but the way Ron rolled his eyes, like that was the most obvious thing in the world, suddenly made him feel a little naïve.

"No, he's not," said Hermione stubbornly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Ron shrugged his shoulders. "We'll see," was all he said.

Their next opportunity to do just that came much earlier than they would have liked. The next day was Saturday, which they had all been looking forward to. They had planned to visit Hagrid in the morning, and even though Hermione now knew about the planned birthday surprise, the boys still intended to ask Hagrid for help with the planning.

When Ron woke up in the morning, however, he discovered that Harry had already left. Hermione, who met Ron in the common room, had not seen him either. They went down to breakfast, hoping to at least find him there. Harry was not in the Great Hall either, but neither were any of the other members of the Gryffindor quidditch team. Puzzle solved, Ron and Hermione grabbed some toast and marmalade and walked to the quidditch pitch.

There were several brooms and a large box, holding the balls, piled up in the middle of the field. Colin Creevey sat high up in the stands, his camera in hand. But other than him, the pitch was deserted.

"They must be done already," said Ron.

"Let's wait for Harry to change, then," suggested Hermione.

They sat down close to the pile of brooms and began to wait. It took much longer than expected until the players finally returned. But they had not changed out of the quidditch robes yet.

"Aren't you finished yet?" Ron called from the stands incredulously.

"Haven't even started," said Harry, looking jealously at the toast and marmalade his friends had brought out of the Great Hall. "Wood's been teaching us new moves."

Hermione opened the book she had brought along, while Ron began watching the training. It started out peacefully enough, only marred by the clicking of Colin's camera, strangely magnified in the deserted stadium, and his shrill cries of "Look this way, Harry!".

But the training had barely begun when several people in green robes walked onto the field, broomsticks in their hands.

"Are those Slytherins?" asked Hermione, looking up from her book. "What's going on?"

"No idea, but I bet it's nothing good," said Ron.

The Gryffindor quidditch players had noticed the intrusion as well. They landed in front of the newcomers. The two teams faced off against each other, and it looked like there was a heated discussion between them.

"Is that Malfoy?" Ron asked disgustedly, spotting the pale blond head among the Slytherins.

Hermione frowned. "Come on, let's see what's happening," she said and stood up. Ron followed suit.

"What's happening?" Ron asked Harry once they reached him. "Why aren't you playing? And what's he doing here?" he asked, pointing at Malfoy.

"I'm the new Slytherin seeker, Weasley," said Malfoy, smugly. "Everyone's just been admiring the brooms my father's bought our team."

Ron gaped, open-mouthed, at the seven superb broomsticks in front of him.

"Good, aren't they?" said Malfoy smoothly. "But perhaps the Gryffindor team will be able to raise some gold and get new brooms, too. You could raffle off those Cleansweep Fives; I expect a museum would bid for them."

The Slytherin team howled with laughter.

"At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in," said Hermione sharply. "They got in on pure talent."

The smug look on Malfoy's face flickered.

"No one asked your opinion, you filthy little mudblood," he spat.

There was an instant uproar at his words. Flint had to dive in front of Malfoy to stop Fred and George jumping on him, Alicia shrieked, "How dare you!"; and Ron plunged his hand into his robes, pulled out his wand, yelling, "You'll pay for that one, Malfoy!" and pointed it furiously under Flint's arm at Malfoy's face.

A loud bang echoed around the stadium and a jet of green light shot out of Ron's wand, hitting Malfoy in the stomach and sending him reeling backward onto the grass.

"Ron! What are you doing?" squealed Hermione.

Everyone else's eyes were on Malfoy, who slowly sat up, glaring at Ron furiously. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Instead, he gave an almighty belch and several slugs dribbled out of his mouth onto his lap.

Some of the Gryffindors sniggered, but the laughter died as the Slytherins drew together, stormy-faced, reaching for their wands.

"Now, none of that!" said Wood, stepping in front of Marcus Flint once again. "Malfoy got what he deserved, and you know it. The use of that word is forbidden at Hogwarts—"

"So is cursing fellow students," said Flint. He tsked. "I'm afraid we'll have to report that," he added with a pretend regretful head shake. With a short gesture, he sent one of his teammates towards the castle.

Harry's heart sank, knowing perfectly well which teacher the Slytherin would get. Ron knew as well, judging from the way he was grimacing.

"What happened, Harry? What happened? Did you curse him?" Colin had run down from his seat and was now dancing around them, trying to get a better look at Malfoy, who continued to belch slugs. The Slytherins gathered around him to keep Colin from taking pictures. But none too close, as no one seemed to want to touch him.

"Harry, let's go get Hagrid, he's closest," Hermione said quietly, while the others were distracted.

Harry nodded. It would not do to leave Ron at Snape's mercy – or lack thereof.

"Harry, wait, where are you going?" squealed Colin, drawing attention to them.

"Hey, come back!" shouted Flint. "You were involved! You may not leave until the teacher gets here!"

Harry and Hermione, who were almost at the edge of the pitch, did not slow down. "We'll be right back!" Hermione shouted back as they hurried to reach Hagrid.

They were within twenty feet of the gamekeeper's cabin when the front door opened, but it was not Hagrid who emerged. Gilderoy Lockhart, wearing robes of palest mauve today, came striding out.

"Oh, no," groaned Harry and tried to get Hermione to hide behind a nearby bush.

She would have none of it and marched straight up towards Lockhart. "Oh, not that again. It's better if we can bring an actual teacher along, you have to see that," she told Harry, who followed behind reluctantly.

"It's a simple matter if you know what you're doing!" Lockhart was saying loudly to Hagrid. "If you need help, you know where I am! I'll let you have a copy of my book. I'm surprised you haven't already got one – I'll sign one tonight and send it over – Well, hello there!" he said as he spotted his students.

Hagrid looked very grumpy, but his expression brightened when he saw who it was. "Bin wonderin' when you'd come ter see me – come in, come in – Did you leave Ron behind?"

Harry and Hermione gave a jumbled explanation of what had happened. It was enough, though, to get both adults to follow them back to the quidditch pitch. When they got there, they saw Snape walking briskly towards the group of students. He spotted them and even from the distance, Harry could tell it only made him angrier.

Everyone began talking at once when the teachers got there, the Slytherins pointing at Ron, while the Gryffindors tried to defend his actions. Snape crouched next to Malfoy to examine him first. But it did not take him long to turn his attention to Ron.

Hagrid tried to intervene, but Snape talked over him, reminding him that he was not a teacher. Harry and Hermione both got angry on Hagrid's behalf, but held their tongues.

"Now, Severus, no need to be so strict!" Lockhart said with a hearty chuckle. "The boys just had a little disagreement, that's all. Mr. Weasley probably just didn't want to lose face in front of his friends—" Here he looked straight at Hermione. "And it can't be easy, being Harry's friend – there's so much to live up to. I'm sure you can understand how—"

This was followed by outcries of favouritism from the Slytherins, while Harry tried to defend Ron – and himself. Snape looked like his worst opinion of Harry had been confirmed.

"If you think you can always find supportive teachers to get you and your friends out of trouble, Potter—" he began to say with a nasty smile.

"Malfoy called Hermione a 'filthy little mudblood'," shouted Ron over everyone's voices. "And I cursed him for it, because that's what he deserved. Leave Harry out of this," he finished much more quietly.

Noticing Snape draw back at those words, even the Slytherins grew quiet.

"As I said, Severus, a little disagreement between boys—" Lockhart began to say, completely failing to read the tense mood around him. But even he noticed the disgusted looks all the Gryffindors – and even Snape – were shooting him, and finally fell silent.

"Did you really use that word?" Snape asked Malfoy in a conversational tone.

The boy remained silent, but the accusatory looks all the Gryffindors were shooting him left no doubt in even Snape's mind that it was the truth.

His face distorted in a grimace. "I'm afraid that word is forbidden on school grounds," he said, and it was not clear whether his disgust was directed at the rule, or the word itself. He looked around, spotting the note he had signed, allowing the Slytherins to train that morning, lying on the ground, forgotten. "Oh, and Mr. Flint. Next time, please don't involve me in quidditch practice schedules. I can't keep track of when the pitch is available, and I don't want to see such a scene again. If you need more training, talk to Madam Hooch." With that, he turned to leave. "Ten points from Gryffindor, for using a wand on the quidditch pitch," he added in parting, almost as an afterthought.

The group dispersed, the disappointed Slytherins helping Malfoy to the hospital wing, and the Gryffindors finally heading for the changing rooms. Lockhart and Colin Creevey hung around until Harry disappeared inside the changing rooms, and then suddenly remembered that they had somewhere to be.

Once Harry had rejoined them, the three friends finally went to visit Hagrid, all the while discussing their unbelievable luck.


	6. Chapter 6

Dudley slapped the book shut, trapping the letter inside.

"Chill, Dud, I'm not taking your book away from you," said Piers, raising his arms in an exaggerated disarming gesture. He walked across Dudley's bed to pull some of his own books from his bag thrown haphazardly on top of his bed.

As if you could, thought Dudley, but just about managed to bite back the words. The constant tension in the dorm room was beginning to grate on his nerves.

"Matter of fact, I'm going to do some studying on my own. I do do that sometimes, too," Piers went on as he settled in front of his desk.

Dudley was actually re-reading Harry's letter – something he could not possibly mention. He would have loved to point out to Piers that he was not, in fact, studying. It was true that Dudley had done more school work since the beginning of the new term – mostly due to spending more time with Artie. But Piers, who was not at all a bad student, had never thought of studying as uncool until he and Dudley had a falling out. Since then – or rather, since their return to Smeltings after the summer holidays – it had become one of his favourite taunts.

Dudley glared at Piers before going back to the letter. He was contemplating what sort of reply to send. Harry had written him about hearing a murderous voice during detention at Hogwarts no one else but him could hear. Together with Dobby's warning, this left Dudley with a rather uncomfortable feeling. Harry's tone was cheerful, as he made fun of his new teacher and talked about his friend's upcoming birthday. He did not sound at all worried. But then again, Dudley thought, he never did. The year before, all of Harry's adventures had sounded so exciting. And they still did, but...

Dudley looked up again. It did not look like Piers would leave any time soon, and there was no way Dudley could risk writing a letter to Harry with him only a few feet away. With a sigh, he pulled out his actual homework and began working.

Every now and then, Piers would look up, as if about to say something, but Dudley had learned his lesson. He did his best to ignore the other boy, who was only looking for an opportunity to start another argument.

Another boy from their year poked his head into their room. "You coming, then?" he asked shortly.

Dudley looked up, surprised at the question, but before he could say anything, he saw Piers get up and walk toward the door.

"Right, let's go, do some sports." He waved his hands in vaguely punching motions. "Or all this studying'll turn me into a nerd!" The boys laughed as they left.

Dudley hastily pulled out Harry's letter to begin writing his reply. But one part of his mind was still occupied by what had happened. He told himself Piers was an idiot and not worth a second thought, but they had been friends for a long time, before their falling out. Had Piers found new friends? What had he been talking about? Had he joined a sports club? Were they playing games he would have enjoyed not too long ago?

Artie found him in a foul mood not long after that. Dudley first rudely waved off the other boy's offer to do homework together, and then agreed resignedly. Studying really was not so bad. He remembered how he had come to that realisation during his visit to Artie's house. After meeting Harry and Hermione, Artie's parents had begun regarding him a lot better than before. They had talked to him in serious voices, with carefully chosen words.

'It must have been so tough, growing up with a gifted cousin. No wonder you're so used to copying others' homework. And I don't think your parents' way of, er, helping you, did you any favours, to be honest. It is truly admirable how well you two get along, despite... everything.'

He had been told such, and more, and the honest flattery had felt so good that Dudley had almost ignored the little voice in the back of his mind, reminding him how it was actually all to Harry's merit. So when they had begun telling him that now he had the opportunity to shine on his own, away from Harry's shadow, at his new school, he had begun to believe them. Suddenly doing well at school no longer sounded like an embarrassing thought.

This of course did not mean that he enjoyed studying any more than he ever had, even with a friend. Artie was fun to be around sometimes, but Dudley just was not the sort of boy who enjoyed reading and studying and even computer games with no other way to pass the time.

"What is it?" Artie asked a short time later, noticing Dudley's dark mood. "Was it Piers again?"

That had not been a difficult guess, but Dudley had to bite back a sharp retort. "Not really," he answered evasively. "I was just wondering about sports clubs."

"Sports clubs? Not really my thing," Artie laughed self-consciously.

"Well, I think I might join one, if they have something that I like. Something violent, something that'll make me stronger."

"What, like boxing?" asked Artie.

"Do we have boxing at Smeltings?"

Artie shrugged. "I think so, yes. It's fairly traditional, isn't it?"

Dudley, who had felt like punching someone for far too long, suddenly felt like he had seen the light at the end of a tunnel. "Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm going to do."

~HP~

"Right, then. Don't yeh go wanderin' off before I return. Best be goin', then. Can' have you lot here after it gets dark. I'll be back in jus' a couple of hours. Yeh have fun 'til then," said Hagrid.

It was a good thing that September 19th fell on the next Saturday. It meant that they had enough time to follow Hagrid to a relatively safe clearing in the Forbidden Forest, while he was running some errands. They were breaking at least one rule, but as long as Hagrid was all right with it, the boys, at least, did not worry too much.

"We'll stay right where we are," said Hermione, her voice a few octaves higher than normal and stiff. She still was not comfortable with the fact that the Forbidden Forest was, in fact, forbidden to students.

After Hagrid had disappeared between the trees, Harry went over to the small pile of the things they had brought along with them. There was his broom, together with two more school brooms, a large patchwork bag that belonged to Hagrid, and a couple smaller ones that contained the wrapped presents.

"Relax, Hermione. Everything will be fine," said Harry. "Come on, Ron. Give me a hand."

He opened the bag Hagrid had left with them, and began pulling out a large yellow blanket. Next came the flask with the hot tea in it, followed by mugs and plates. Hagrid had also insisted to leave them with some of his rock biscuits, but Harry chose to leave them in the bag for now. Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione carried over the presents they had brought with them to the blanket.

"All right, are we all set, then?" said Harry.

"I think so, yeah," said Ron, as he plopped down on the blanket.

His friends sat down as well.

"Right, then. Happy thirteenth birthday, Hermione," said Harry.

Ron said so as well, while giving her his present – delivered from the Burrow that morning by Errol. It contained a birthday cake – small and a little shaken up from the owl delivery, but still delicious-looking. Hermione produced a packet of sugar-free biscuits sent to her by her parents. They all had a laugh at those as they devoured their very much sugary picnic.

"So, who wants to go flying?" asked Ron as soon as the cake was finished.

"Give me a moment, I'm stuffed." Harry leaned back, while pushing his plate away. Ron really was a bottomless pit. He had eaten the most, yet he did not seem weighed down.

"We'll go in a moment, just after I've had a look at the rest of my presents," said Hermione. She did not usually enjoy flying, but seeing as the boys had organised the whole thing for her, she was intending to have as much fun as she could.

Hermione went back to the package and accompanying letter her parents had sent her. She moved on quickly from the gift voucher, which the letter told her came from her grandparents. The final item in the package was, unsurprisingly, a book, titled 'Chosen Future: How your wand can predict the course of your magical growth'.

"Oh, wow. They remembered I wanted to know about wands. I didn't even say much about it, but they went and got me a book from the magical world," Hermione gushed. "Oh, Mum says Mrs. Weasley helped them order it," she said, after looking over her letter. "And she even suggested the title. It's one of those she read when buying wands for your oldest brothers – Is that true, Ron?"

Ron shrugged his shoulders.

Meanwhile, Harry regarded the colourful book with a sinking heart, suddenly not liking his idea for Hermione's present after all...

"Actual wandlore is supposed to be far too advanced, apparently. No wonder I couldn't find anything in the library..." Hermione went on, oblivious to Harry becoming more and more disheartened with each word.

"Yeah, I guess I should have, maybe, thought of that," he said self-consciously. "I had the same idea, but..." He handed her a book as well, still wrapped in the postal package.

"Oh, thank you, Harry..." began Hermione, while she ripped the packaging off her present.

It was a dark, leather-bound tome, simply titled 'Wandlore'. As she leafed through it, Harry could see that instead of moving illustrations, the pages were filled with complicated-looking formulas and diagrams – far too advanced for even the most studious second-year. The way she smiled happily when she thanked him, she did not seem to mind that she probably would not be able to understand much of anything from the book. Harry supposed it was the thought that counted, after all.

They went flying after that. Harry noticed Ron eyeing his Nimbus hopefully and let him have it, while he and Hermione took the school brooms.

"Let's see if we can see Hogwarts from here," said Ron, as he flew higher.

They were close enough to the castle that seeing it was not much of a problem, once they had flown high enough to look over the top of the trees. Hermione, who had only passed the flying class at the very end of the previous year, still was not comfortable being that high up in the air. She soon returned closer to the ground and flew in slow circles around the clearing. Harry flew by every now and then to give her some instructions.

Hermione discovered that away from an audience – Harry and Ron did not count – she could enjoy a slow flight after all. Her friends noticed as well. Ron let her have the Nimbus – which did feel noticeably more comfortable, as it did not make any unpredictable sideways lurches – and the boys flew with her, giving her advice every now and then, until she noticed her confidence – and skill – in flying improving.

Hermione was the first to tire of flying despite the unexpected fun it had been. She handed over the Nimbus to Harry and left the boys to their more daring flying. Instead, she went back to the books she had received as presents. Trust Harry to be thoughtful and thoughtless at the same time, she mused fondly, leafing through the book he had given her. Well, maybe in a few years she would be able to understand some of it. Meanwhile, she began reading the book her parents had sent her.

The boys returned a good half hour later, flushed and energised.

"Hagrid hasn't returned already, has he?" asked Ron as they sat down next to Hermione.

"No, is it time already?" Hermione checked her watch, surprised to see that the boys were right. Hagrid was due any moment. She closed the book she had been reading.

"You actually trying to read that?" Harry looked doubtfully at the now closed cover of Wandlore.

"It's... Well, it is a bit—" Hermione laughed at her friend's disbelieving look. "All right, _far_ too advanced for me—"

"I know. That was my silly mistake. You don't have to try to read it anyway, or—"

"No, that's not – I just wanted to look up something I read in the other book—" She opened Chosen Future right at the beginning, to a chapter called Attraction, Affinity and Allegiance. "Here, this sounds very much like what Ollivander was saying—"

"Yeah, he said a number of things," said Ron, remembering the uncomfortable discussion he had had with the wandmaker a few weeks ago. "What are you trying to find out, anyway?"

"That thing he said about our wands, and wand cores, and the tree calendar—"

"So? A bit of coincidence—"

"Maybe, but it could be interesting. It says here that before wands were invented, witches and wizards used to cast spells in groups. They weren't any better than us at controlling their magic without a wand, but if they could find people they had magical affinity with, spells worked a lot better—"

"And if they didn't have affinity?" asked Harry.

"Then... Their magic would clash and they'd have nasty accidents, I think."

"Yeah, sounds fun. But I think I prefer wands," said Ron.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "The thing is, the affinity between us and our wands is not that different. It's just that wands – because they're just things – can't really work against you and you can win their allegiance. But I still don't understand what allegiance is—"

"So what happens if we cast a spell together, then?" Harry looked around. "Say, if we tried to move the mug back in the bag—"

"Which one?" asked Ron.

"The one I used. Let's try Wingardium Leviosa—"

"What? Wait, what are you doing—" Hermione began to protest.

She was too late, the boys had already cast the spell, but she need not have worried. The spell was a bit wobbly, as the boys had to settle on a single direction, but other than that, nothing out of the ordinary happened.

"Why isn't it more powerful?" asked Harry, disappointed by the lack of excitement.

Ron scratched his head. "Don't know. It's not supposed to, I guess, or everyone would be casting spells together, wouldn't they?"

"Here, let me try as well," said Hermione.

She cast spells with both boys as they continued to pack up, with similar results. The combined spells were all a bit wonky, but seemed the more fun because of that. It barely seemed like work, to pack everything up.

"Let's do the blanket all together," suggested Harry, when they had reached the last item.

This time, something a little unusual did happen. The spell did not wobble. It was, in fact, even more stable than when cast separately. But when Hermione pointed that out excitedly, itching to pull her books out again, the boys merely shrugged, still unimpressed.

"Oh, I see Hagrid over there," said Ron, when she still wanted to talk about it.

"Are yeh ready ter go already?" Hagrid asked them when he saw the packed bags and broomsticks, all waiting to be taken back. "Yeh didn' get bored, did yeh?"

They all assured him that they had had a great time as they followed him back to the castle.

That evening, back in the common room, Hermione was still reading her wandlore books while the boys were poring over Harry's letters from Dudley and Sirius. Careful of the students around them, they kept their voices low, shielding the letters between their lowered heads and raised arms – completely unaware how suspicious they looked.

"Even Dudders thinks the voice I heard must be connected to whatever danger is supposed to be at Hogwarts this year," said Harry, rehashing the same arguments they had discussed the past few days.

"But that was a good point Sirius made," said Ron. "You're the only one Dobby warned, and you're the only one who heard that voice. I mean, yeah, Lockhart's an idiot, but he was in the same room when you heard it—"

"Lockhart kept prattling on about his fans during my whole detention. He wouldn't have heard a thing over the sound of his own voice!" said Harry, a little louder than intended.

The argument was going nowhere. He looked up, shooting frustrated looks at Hermione, debating whether he should draw even more attention to them and call her over. Solving mysteries without her logical arguments was needlessly frustrating.

While he gestured to Hermione to come over, Harry noticed Neville watching them with rapt interest. Caught staring, the boy blushed and looked down, to what appeared to be a letter of his own. Ron noticed as well and exchanged looks with Harry, both silently debating how to include Hermione in their discussion without drawing even more attention. Harry was about to suggest maybe going somewhere else, when the boys noticed that Hermione was not walking towards their armchairs. Rather, she had walked over to Neville.

"Neville, I was wondering, have you managed to do the engorgement charm? I've been going over my notes and I think I'm missing something," she said, much to the astonishment of her friends, who knew perfectly well that she had no problems with it.

Neville, if possible, looked even more surprised. He may not have been the smartest student in his year (like Hermione), but he was not nearly as stupid as some people (like Snape) thought him to be. Hermione asking him, of all people, about something she had trouble understanding, was enough to set off his alarm bells.

"A little," he said very cautiously. "But I'm sure you're much better at it."

"Well, maybe, I don't know," Hermione waved off the objection. "I just wanted to see a comparison—" She noticed Neville's eyes slipping over to where Harry and Ron were sitting, and paying close attention to Hermione's bizarre behaviour. "Oh, they won't do. We learned together, so we all cast it the same way."

"All right," Neville agreed reluctantly.

Hermione put a little glass bead on the table. "Here, try on this."

Neville cast the charm carefully. The bead grew larger, but not by much, and even from the distance, Harry could see that it was no longer perfectly spherical. Still, not a bad effort for Neville.

Hermione regarded the bead, as if it held untold secrets. "Maybe one more time? And I'll cast as well, this time."

Harry and Ron looked at each other and rolled their eyes at her antics, finally catching on what she was up to.

Neville did not argue. He just wanted to be done with it, because Hermione was beginning to make him nervous. " _Engorgio_ ," he said once again, while Hermione did the same. The spells had barely touched the glass bead, when it exploded, shattering in thousands of sharp little pieces. Harry and Ron got up, alarmed.

"Careful!" shouted one of the prefects. She rushed over to clean up the shards, berating them all the while.

"I – I – I'm sorry," said Neville, "I don't even know what I did wrong. You should probably ask someone else..." he added softly.

But Hermione had a mad glint in her eyes. She was like a dog with a bone – she needed to understand. "Nonsense, Neville. We'll just be more careful. Here—" She produced another glass bead. "Let's try very slowly this time."

"Hermione, I don't think that's such a great idea—" began Neville.

"Oh, nonsense, you did well enough on your own," said Harry. He and Ron had walked over to them, now finally interested in Hermione's theories.

"Yeah, same thing happened to me the other day," Ron lied shamelessly.

Neville began to feel like he was missing something, but then again, these were his friends, and they were usually trustworthy... "Right, carefully, then," he said doubtfully.

"Here, let me try as well," said Harry.

This combination was not as violent, but not much of anything happened. The bead barely grew in size, and collapsed back to its original size as soon as they stopped casting.

"Now me," said Ron and reached for his wand.

This gave Neville pause. "What are you trying to do?" he asked suspiciously. "See how to cast together, or..." Neville really was smarter than some people gave him credit for.

The three friends exchanged looks, finally nodding resignedly.

"Something like that, yes," said Hermione. "So if you don't mind—" She reached for her wand again.

"Oh, all right, then," said Neville. He shrugged. Whatever those three were up to was bound to be interesting.

"No, let me try now," Ron interrupted Hermione.

"Fine." She stepped out of the way a little ungracefully. "By the way, Neville, what's your wand made of?"

"Er, apple and dragon heartstring. Why?"

"Oh, just curious," replied Hermione, but Harry could tell she was itching to look it up.

"It belonged to my dad," Neville added softly, looking down at it.

"How did you know it chose you?"

Neville gave her an uncomprehending look.

"Never mind."

"Yeah, never mind that," said Ron. "Let's try this."

Neville nodded and they cast the charm. Surprisingly, it worked much better than before. This time, the charm worked and held, and the resulting bead looked only a little lumpier than when Neville had done the charm on his own.

Hermione was about to go into full research mode, when they heard a gasp behind them. Ginny was staring at them.

"Ron, what happened to your wand?" she asked, surprised enough that she managed to speak in Harry's presence.

"What?" sad Ron, at first too confused to realise what she meant.

"Your wand – or, rather, not your wand. Whose is it? And where's yours?"

"What do you mean?" asked Neville. "Of course that's his wand!"

Hermione, who knew better, took charge. "Oh, yeah, I wanted to tell you about that. Actually, I wanted to show you something. It'll just take a minute." With that, she steered Ginny toward the entrance of the common room. The boys followed her, leaving behind a very confused Neville.

Ginny stopped walking and crossed her arms as soon as they were outside. "So, what..." she began suspiciously, but her voice trailed off as soon as she noticed Harry.

The three friends exchanged looks, unsure how to explain. Ever since the quidditch training that had ended with Ron cursing Malfoy, they had not worried about Ron's new wand getting noticed. Fred and George had missed it, only a few feet away. They had been sure that meant the notice-me-not charm was working.

"Yeah, it's a new wand," Ron finally admitted. "But you can't tell anyone, do you hear me?" he implored.

Ginny scowled. "Where did it come from? And what happened to your old wand?"

"I, er, lost my old one over the summer, but didn't want anyone to know—"

"You lost it? How could you lose your wand?"

"Actually, Snuffles, er, ran away with it," said Harry, which was almost the truth. "And so I decided to replace it. But Ron didn't want to say anything, because he didn't want to get in trouble—"

Ginny's eyes darted towards him when he began to speak, but she quickly looked away. "So... I wasn't the only... Of course, you'd give Ron things, too – he's your friend..." she muttered, then blushed.

Harry remembered how he had passed on the books Lockhart had given him to her. He had barely given that a second thought. But it seemed to have meant something to her. He did not know what to say.

"Well, anyway. You mustn't say anything. Promise you'll keep your mouth shut," said Ron.

"Ron!" Hermione berated him, but Ron paid her no mind, keeping his focus on Ginny.

"But..." At her brother's darkening expression, she held up her hands. "All right. It's none of my business, anyway—"

"Exactly."

Ginny scowled. "But how you hope to keep it secret is beyond me. Everyone's bound to notice sooner or later. I'm surprised Percy hasn't noticed yet—"

"What's surprising is how you managed to notice!" said Ron.

"Maybe you forgot to cast the charm?" Hermione said under her breath.

"No I didn't!" Ron drew his wand to wave it in front of her face. "Here, check if you don't believe me—"

"Charm?" Ginny began to say, but then trailed off. Her eyes took on a faraway look as she regarded her brother's wand. Her face went slack, before a rather odd expression came into her eyes – something quite incongruous with her childish face. "Oh, I see..." she said softly, with a hint of a smile in her voice.

"Ah!" Harry's hand shot to his forehead as a sharp pain went through his scar.

Ginny's eyes sought his and held his gaze for an extended moment. Her eyes looked fathomless and shadowed and Harry felt unable to look away. Then she blinked and the moment passed. Her glassy eyes refocussed, she blushed and looked away. She mumbled something between an excuse and an apology and fled back into the common room.

"What just happened?" asked Harry.

Ron looked bewildered, while Hermione looked concerned. "I don't want to sound interfering, Ron, but maybe you should keep an eye on her," she finally suggested.

Days passed, then weeks. October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. Madam Pomfrey was kept busy by a sudden spate of colds among the staff and students.

Ginny Weasley kept her promise and did not say a word about Ron's wand. As for keeping an eye on her, it seemed almost as if she was avoiding them. Either that, or she was never around and no one had paid attention to her disappearances before. At any rate, the only thing they noticed was that Ginny looked increasingly paler as time wore on. They tried talking to Percy, hoping he would take care of her, but all he did was bully her into taking some pepperup potion. The steam pouring from under her vivid hair gave the impression that her whole head was on fire.

Nothing more could be discovered until after Halloween.

It was lucky the day after Halloween fell on a Sunday as Harry, Ron and Hermione had a lot to talk about. Soon after breakfast, his friends sat around Harry in the common room, as he tried to compose a lengthy letter to Sirius.

"So, I've written what we saw – Mrs. Norris hanging by her tail, the puddle of water under her, and the message on the wall—"

"The chamber of secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware," supplied Hermione.

"Yeah, I wrote that. I also wrote how we got there – that I heard that voice again. You might have some doubts about that—"

"I believe a hundred percent that you heard it, Harry," said Hermione. "The voice led us to Mrs. Norris. It's just how Sirius said – you're the only one who hears it, just like you're the only one Dobby warned—"

"But we now agree that there really is a danger at Hogwarts this year!" hissed Harry, trying his best to keep his voice low enough not to be overheard.

"Yeah, we may all hate that cat, but petrifying her..." Ron shook his head.

"I'll have to read up on that Chamber of Secrets," mused Hermione. "And... I wonder who the enemies of the heir are supposed to be. Whose heir?"

"Well, you heard Malfoy. He seemed to know exactly what that message meant," said Ron darkly.

Harry hummed. "I should probably mention that as well," he said and picked up his quill.

"Did you write about the deathday party? And about the professors questioning us later?" asked Hermione.

"I did, yes. Ugh," groaned Harry. "I should never have promised Nearly Headless Nick I'd go to his deathday party. None of this would have happened if I hadn't even talked to him—"

"How do you figure that?" asked Hermione sensibly. "You had nothing to do with Filch's cat being petrified, so—"

"Yes, yes," Harry waved her off, "but if we hadn't been there – Actually, if Filch hadn't found me talking to Nearly Headless Nick, I never would've found out he was a squib, and he wouldn't have had a reason to suspect us—"

"That still leaves Snape, and he doesn't need a reason to frame us for something," said Ron.

"Oh, yeah, him. I wonder what Sirius will write about that," sniggered Harry. "Whatever he may have promised, he hasn't written a single letter yet without insulting Snape in it in some way."

"Yeah, even when Snape let me off easily for cursing Malfoy, all Sirius wrote was how Snape used to use the 'm' word as a student himself."

"But that was..." Hermione began to say, but trailed off. She frowned.

"What?" asked Ron.

"Professor Snape, he – well, he's been watching us ever since, hasn't he?"

Ron waved that away. "He's been doing that forever. All year, he's been trying to get us properly punished – after the car trip he wanted us expelled, then he had to let me get away with cursing Malfoy – only took ten points! I could hardly believe it – and then, yesterday, he wanted Harry off the quidditch team—"

"Yeah... we've thwarted all his efforts, haven't we?" mused Harry. "Think we should be a bit careful around him from now on?"

He and Ron looked at each other. "Nah!" they both said together and giggled.

Hermione shook her head. "I don't know... I thought he was really surprised that day when you told him what Draco Malfoy had said... He – I don't know." She broke off and shook her head.

"You think he's rethinking his opinion of us? Even a little?" asked Harry. He tried to sound disbelieving, but the thought had occurred to him as well. Even back at the end of their first year, Snape had a few moments when he would suddenly treat them almost decently.

Hermione did not answer.

"He might be, actually," said Ron instead. "It'd explain why he seems so mad at us even when we haven't done much of anything. He's really mad at himself, because he wants to think the worst of us, but we keep changing his mind."

The boys laughed, liking the thought of messing with Snape's peace of mind.

Hermione shook her head. "Never mind that now, Harry. Have you finished the letter? The earlier we send it, the earlier Sirius can reply. Who knows, maybe he can tell us something about that Chamber of Secrets – You remembered to ask him, didn't you?"

"Er, sure," said Harry, but then went back to his letter to add more writing to it.

"And maybe ask him if he knows what could have petrified that cat—"

"All right," sighed Harry.

"It might not be such a bad thing, actually," said Ron. "Maybe we all worry for no reason. I mean, whoever did it, did us all a favour, putting that cat out of commission—"

"Ron!" Hermione all but yelled at him. "How can you say that? She was petrified!"

As soon as she had flared up, she clamped her hands over her mouth. They looked around, to see if she had attracted unwanted attention, and saw Ginny looking at them, looking disquieted.

"Sorry, Ginny, I forgot how much you like cats – all cats," Ron said with a grimace.

"Sh-she was petrified," Ginny all but whispered.

"But you haven't really got to know Mrs. Norris," Ron told her bracingly. "Honestly, we're much better off without her."

Ginny's lip trembled.

"Stuff like this doesn't often happen at Hogwarts," Ron assured her. "They'll catch the maniac who did it and have him out of here in no time. I just hope he's got time to petrify Filch before he's expelled. I'm only joking—" Ron added hastily as Ginny blanched.

"Mrs. Norris is going to be all right soon," Hermione tried to comfort her more sensibly. "Professor Dumbledore examined her, you see, and he said so—"

"Yes, exactly. No need to worry," said Ron. "And you didn't even have to see her, did you? I didn't see you around there after the feast—"

"N-no, I—"

"Bit of a shame, actually. You might've noticed something. You're still the only one who's noticed, you know—" Ron looked around and lowered his voice, "—my wand."

"Never mind that, Ron. It's good you didn't rush over there with everyone else and didn't get to see that. Did Percy take you away from there?" asked Hermione.

It was the question of a concerned friend, with no hidden agenda. Remembering how the feast had ended just as the three friends had reached that passage and had streamed out of the Great Hall and into the passage from both ends had prompted Hermione to ask.

Ginny's eyes turned glassy again, before a cold, calculating look settled on her features. "Mind your own business," she said, quite calmly, without the slightest trace of her usual shyness.

Harry's hand went to his scar again, something Ginny did not miss. She seemed to freeze for just a moment. Then she blinked, blushed and turned confused eyes to them.

"What would you say that for?" said Ron. "Hermione was just trying to help."

"What?" asked Ginny. "What did I..." She trailed off, looking embarrassed. "Never mind, I need to go, do my homework..." She left quickly, not looking back.

"All right, now I'm worried," said Ron.


	7. Chapter 7

The days following the attack on Mrs. Norris were a trying time for Ron. He tried with Harry's help to keep an eye on Ginny, who was as difficult to track as before. Whenever they ran into her, though, she seemed to be acting perfectly normally. The boys could not decide what to make of her, and more importantly, what, if anything, to do about her.

What made matters worse was that Hermione was not being very helpful. She already spent a lot of time reading normally, but now she was doing almost nothing else, obsessed as she was with whatever she was trying to find in the library books. Her only suggestion was to go to McGonagall, which Ron did not find overly helpful.

"Has she gone bonkers?" Ron complained to Harry later on. "I can't report my little sister to a professor!"

"I don't think Hermione meant it like that," Harry tried to defend her. "I mean, if you're worried about Ginny – if you think she's not well – then you could maybe ask, er, well, maybe, Madam Pomfrey—"

"And tell her what? That Ginny seemed maybe, possibly, a bit out of sorts a couple times, and that she was a little rude to Hermione?" He threw his arms up in the air, almost as frustrated as he was worried.

Harry did not argue. And what could he say? Mentioning how his scar had hurt both times would sound like an accusation. In the end, all the boys could think to do was to write to Sirius and to ask Percy again to keep an eye on her – however useless a thing Ron thought that to be...

But later that day, Harry left Ron to track down Hermione, who was once again in the library.

"I'm going to the owlery, to send a letter to Sirius," he said, unsure how to begin.

Hermione looked up from the book she was browsing through, to look at Harry quizzically.

"I'm thinking about telling him about Ginny... He might know if there's a reason to worry... Right?" Harry felt uncomfortable, discussing Ron's business with Hermione behind their friend's back, but he could not think of a better solution.

Hermione closed her book slowly. "Will you tell him about your scar hurting?" she asked carefully. "I think you should," she went on quickly, seeing Harry's hesitant expression. "I think... Oh, will he know what that means?"

"Er, well, I don't really know what it means myself, do I? So, as much as I know, I guess. But... But it's Ron's sister..."

Hermione looked down. "I know. But, Harry, she wasn't anything like that when I met her at the Burrow. She seemed so – so friendly. And normal. And if even I can notice how she's changed – Well, what if she's in trouble? If Ron won't talk to a teacher, we have to at least tell an adult." She paused, as an idea occurred to her. "Do you think you could talk Ron into writing to his parents?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't know. He won't say anything about what happened to Ginny. No suspicions, no guesses. All he'll say is that she looks pale, or – or ill, when we manage to spot her every now and then. And I don't want to..."

Hermione nodded, grimacing. "You don't want to accuse her of anything, of course. Well, let's see if Sirius can think of something, then."

~HP~

A couple days after that, Hermione asked Professor Binns to tell her about the Chamber of Secrets, hoping he would know more than she remembered having read in Hogwarts, A History – which she had been forced to leave back home, as her Lockhart books took up all the space in her trunk.

After the end of that class, Harry, Ron and Hermione went to the corridor where Mrs. Norris had been petrified, to look for some clues. They found scorch marks and spiders fleeing through a small crack – much to Ron's horror, and his friends' amusement. They also figured out where the water had come from: the out-of-order girls' bathroom right next to the wall with the still visible writing on it.

Hermione knew that Moaning Myrtle lived there and thought it might be a good idea to question her. The boys followed her reluctantly. That did not go so well. Moaning Myrtle did not tell them anything useful, and as they were leaving the toilet, Percy spotted them from the head of the stairs.

"That's a girls' bathroom!" he gasped, a look of complete shock on his face. "What were you—?"

"Just having a look around," Ron shrugged. "Clues, you know—"

Percy swelled in a manner that reminded Harry forcefully of Mrs. Weasley.

"Get – away – from – there—" Perry said, striding toward them and starting to bustle them along, flapping his arms. "Don't you care what this looks like? Coming back here while everyone's at dinner—"

"Why shouldn't we be here?" said Ron hotly, stopping short and glaring at Percy. "Listen, we never laid a finger on that cat!"

Harry was tempted to say something similar. He was becoming tired of people avoiding him and whispering behind his back. First Justin Finch-Fletchley, who had turned around and walked in the opposite direction the last time he had run into Harry, and then of course Colin, a few hours ago, who had been only too eager to tell Harry how many people he had heard accusing him of being the Heir of Slytherin.

"That's what I told Ginny," said Percy fiercely, "but she still seems to think you're going to be expelled, I've never seen her so upset, crying her eyes out. You might think of her, all the first years are thoroughly overexcited by this business—"

Harry saw Hermione's eyes widen. At her reaction, his mind went back to what Percy had just said. It was indeed odd, for Ginny to be so sure they would get in trouble, when clearly the professors had not punished them.

"You don't care about Ginny," said Ron, whose ears were now reddening. "You're just worried I'm going to mess up your chances of being Head Boy—"

"Five points from Gryffindor!" Percy said tersely, fingering his prefect badge. "And I hope it teaches you a lesson! No more detective work, or I'll write to Mum!"

And he strode off, the back of his neck as red as Ron's ears.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione chose seats as far as possible from Percy in the common room that night. Harry had finally received a reply from Sirius, which all three of them were eager to read. He ripped the envelope open hastily, as his friends cluttered around him.

_Dear Harry,_

_I don't even know where to begin. And I used to think my school years were tough – leading up to a war, and all. But yours really take the cake. This'll have to be a serious letter, I'm afraid. (No pun intended.)_

_I suppose that's one way to let me know to get on with my end of business, anyway. I wish I could tell you I had everything sorted out already, and I could (Something was scratched out and the sentence remained unfinished.)_

_Anyway, I'll do what I can for now._

_First, what you said about Ginny's odd behaviour: Ron can be trusted to know his sister, of course, but even if her behaviour worries him, it is still possible that there's nothing wrong. A drastic change like coming to Hogwarts could have affected her._

_What you said about your scar, though—_

Harry looked up from the letter, turning contrite eyes towards Ron. He should have known writing Sirius about that was bound to get back to Ron. "The bit about my scar – I thought it hurt when Ginny, er—"

Ron was more surprised about Harry's reaction. "Of course your scar hurt. Both times. I noticed." He looked towards Hermione, to confirm that she had as well. His shoulders drooped and he scowled. "That's really the worst part, isn't it?" he asked his friends.

Hermione nodded gently. Ron had finally acknowledged that Ginny was involved in something, rather than merely unwell.

Harry cleared his throat. "So, let's see what Sirius has to say," he said, directing attention back to the letter.

_What you said about your scar, though, worries me a little. You told me it used to hurt sometimes when you were around Quirrel – but not always. It might be a sort of warning from danger. I'm just guessing here, of course, but if we try to work with that theory for now, and if we all agree that Ginny herself can't be the danger, what does that leave?_

_As far as I understood it, Ginny had short moments when she didn't quite seem herself, and did not remember afterwards what she had said. This suggests to me that she might be under the influence of someone else's magic. There are several spells and potions that can do such a thing. The most common would be the Confundus charm, I think. It is quite advanced and most certainly not taught at Hogwarts._

_There is another spell – a curse with a somewhat similar effect. It's one of the darkest and most forbidden, and I hope I'm just being paranoid in even mentioning it—_

"I know what he's talking about," said Ron, looking rather sick.

"What is it?" asked Hermione.

"The Imperius Curse – one of the Unforgivables." Ron shook his head at his friends' blank, mildly curious faces. "It's one of those things that will land you in Azkaban right away, no questions asked."

The letter next moved on to the Chamber of Secrets. Sirius had written all the rumours he had heard about it, but Hermione had already found out more about it from Binns.

"Did you write Sirius what Ginny got so mad about at Hermione for? That Hermione noticed how she had been missing from the corridor when everyone else ran there to have a look at Mrs. Norris?" asked Ron. He looked a little green, and was bracing himself for the answer.

"Er, I didn't really focus on that," said Harry, not quite looking at him.

"Right. Right." Ron sat up, collecting his courage. "Well, that won't do. If someone's confounded her, we won't be any help if we just pretend we don't notice things. So what else?"

"Well..." began Hermione. "Well, I found it odd that Ginny would tell Percy she's worried we're going to get expelled."

Ron nodded. "Because she might know we're supposed to be framed?" he half-asked, half-stated very quietly.

His friends shrugged awkwardly.

"Who can it be, though?" asked Hermione in a quiet voice. "Who'd want to hurt her and frame us, and frighten all the squibs and muggle-borns out of Hogwarts?"

"Let's think," said Ron in mock puzzlement. "Who do we know who hates us enough and thinks muggle-borns are scum?" He looked at Hermione.

Hermione looked back, unconvinced. "If you're talking about Malfoy—"

"Of course I am!" said Ron. "You heard him – 'You'll be next, Mudbloods!' Come on, you've only got to look at his foul rat face to know it's him—"

"Malfoy, the Heir of Slytherin?" said Hermione sceptically.

"Look at his family," said Harry. "The whole lot of them have been in Slytherin; he's always boasting about it. They could easily be Slytherin's descendants. His father's definitely evil enough."

"They could've had the key to the Chamber of Secrets for centuries!" said Ron. "Handing it down, father to son..."

"Well," said Hermione cautiously, "I suppose it's possible..."

"But how do we prove it?" said Harry darkly. "And what can we do about Ginny?"

"I'll have to read everything I can find about the Confundus charm. Harry, your Viridian book might have something about it – maybe even a counter-spell. Now, that really would help."

"I'll look it up this evening," promised Harry.

"And, maybe we could ask a teacher for help as well," Hermione said slowly, with a glance at Ron.

"We'll do that if we can't help her ourselves," Ron said after a pause. "I don't want her getting into trouble for something that isn't her fault. And we can't prove yet that Malfoy – or anyone, for that matter – has been cursing her. Harry and I never saw her with anyone suspicious."

"So how do we prove it?" Harry asked once again.

"There might be a way," said Hermione slowly, dropping her voice still further with a quick glance across the room at Percy. "Of course, it would be difficult. And dangerous, very dangerous. We'd be breaking about fifty school rules, I expect—"

"If, in a month or so, you feel like explaining, you will let us know, won't you?" said Ron irritably.

"All right," said Hermione coldly. "What we'd need to do is to get inside the Slytherin common room and ask Malfoy a few questions without him realizing it's us."

"But that's impossible," Harry said as Ron laughed.

"No, it's not," said Hermione. "All we'd need would be some Polyjuice Potion."

~HP~

Friday morning, a harassed-looking Hedwig returned with a thick envelope just as Harry had sat down for breakfast with his friends. He had Curses and Countercurses opened in front of him, to show Hermione the entry about the Confundus charm, when a thick letter landed on top of the page.

"It's from, er, Snuffles," Harry told his friends while he gave Hedwig food and drink to help her recover from her tiring journey. "I just wrote to him last night with our plans..."

He opened the envelope quickly, wondering what might be so important that Sirius would hurry Hedwig back with the news. To all their astonishment, there was not much news about either Ginny or the Chamber of Secrets, or even about Sirius' own situation. Instead, almost the entire letter was a gigantic rant on the topic of werewolves.

"You think he's cracked?" laughed Ron. "Living as a dog all the time can't have helped..."

"What's got into him? I just wrote that we've started reading Wandering with Werewolves in Lockhart's class. I was telling him about our plan to get Lockhart to sign the library form—" Harry almost whispered, with a glance at the students sitting and chatting around them.

"Let me have another look," said Hermione, as she took the letter.

"What exactly did you write?" said Ron. "He sounds like you hurt his canine feelings."

The boys giggled.

"I'm not sure. I just wrote how I'll probably have to act the part of the werewolf. And of course Lockhart will take his time until he, er, defeats me with the Homorphus Charm. It's so annoying that we have to keep Lockhart in a good mood today and I can't refuse! I'm starting to think you were right about him, Ron. He's just trying to embarrass me." Harry jammed his porridge with his spoon, taking out his anger on it.

Hermione was looking straight at him when he looked up, and Harry braced himself for her to come to Lockhart's defence. Instead, she looked thoughtful.

"It's like Si- er, Snuffles, is really upset, but is trying not to show it," she said, referring to the letter. "Especially about the Homorphus Charm. He writes that it's anything but a cure, that it usually – almost always – kills the werewolf. And there's so much more about werewolves in here – It's like a really well-researched essay, but he must have written it from memory. And a lot of it is... not..."

"He did say he was friends with a werewolf at school," Ron said very quietly. "He sounds like one of those werewolf rights people, to be honest. I wouldn't believe everything he's written."

Hermione frowned. "That might be, but the thing is, up until now, everything I believed about werewolves, I was taught by Quirrel."

The boys did a double-take at that.

~HP~

The lesson with Lockhart went exactly as predicted. Harry was hauled to the front of the class to act the part of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf. He had to endure being slammed into the floor and held down as Lockhart described the scene in detail. Having to enact the werewolf's piteous moan after he was subjected to the Homorphus Charm added a whole new layer of anger after reading Sirius' letter.

Finally, the bell rang and Lockhart got to his feet. "Homework – compose a poem about my defeat of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf! Signed copies of Magical Me to the author of the best one!"

The class began to leave. Harry returned to the back of the room, where Ron and Hermione were waiting. They approached the front desk after everyone had left. Hermione spun Lockhart a tale of needing a book from the Restricted Section to better understand Gadding with Ghouls. Without really looking at it, Lockhart scrawled an enormous loopy signature on the note and handed it back to Hermione.

"So, Harry," said Lockhart, while Hermione folded the note with fumbling fingers and slipped it into her bag. "Tomorrow's the first Quidditch match of the season, I believe? Gryffindor against Slytherin—"

"Er, Professor, I, maybe, had a little question," stammered Hermione.

"Yes?" said Lockhart, not entirely happy to be interrupted.

Hermione did not notice, still giddy that Lockhart had called her the best student of the year a moment ago. "I wanted to ask about today's lesson. So brave of you to face a werewolf and defeat him almost bare-handedly—"

"Yes, well..." Lockhart chuckled mock-humbly.

"But, I was wondering what happened to the, er, werewolf – after he turned back into a human, I mean."

"Oh! Why, he went back to his family, of course." Lockhart gave her one of his patented toothy grins.

"But wasn't he hurt? I mean, the Homorphus Charm is very dangerous, and it's not forever, is it? It just reverses one transformation. What about the next full moon?"

Lockhart's smile had completely disappeared while Hermione kept asking questions, and he was beginning to regard her rather coolly. "You seem to be forgetting that werewolves are bloodthirsty monsters. This one, especially, let me tell you. For months, he terrorised that little village—"

"Right, of course he did," said Ron, while grabbing her arm. "Hermione just sometimes forgets the obvious—"

"Yes, don't you, Hermione?" said Harry as well, as he pulled at her other arm.

The boys dragged her out of the classroom before she could say anything else, together with the note in her bag. They almost ran to the library.

"I don't believe it! Who knows what happened to that werewolf!" ranted Hermione. "And we don't even know who he actually was, so we'll never find out. I didn't really think about it before, but of course he must have had a real name. Wagga Wagga Werewolf, really!"

"Well, we keep telling you, Lockhart's a brainless git!" said Ron, rather insensitively.

"He – he—" Hermione looked like she was about to sink in despair.

"Honestly!" Ron went on, without an ounce of tact.

"Ron—" Harry tried to interrupt, to no avail.

"I mean, what's it going to take for you to admit it?" asked Ron.

Hermione swallowed the lump in her throat. Her eyes were suspiciously bright, but she collected herself. "I still think we must have misunderstood—" She held up her hands to stop Ron from interrupting her. "But, if he really hurt someone – if he really hurts people when there are better ways, then he really is a – a..." She could not finish the thought.

Ron was still sceptical, but Harry nudged him, and he finally let it go.

Five minutes after getting Moste Potente Potions out of the library, they were barricaded in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, looking at the recipe for Polyjuice Potion.

"This is the most complicated potion I've ever seen. Lacewing flies, leeches, fluxweed, and knotgrass," murmured Hermione, running her finger down the list of ingredients. "Well, they're easy enough, they're in the student store cupboard, we can help ourselves... Oooh, look, powdered horn of a Bicorn – don't know where we're going to get that – shredded skin of a Boomslang – that'll be tricky, too and of course a bit of whoever we want to change into."

"Excuse me?" said Ron sharply. "What d'you mean, a bit of whoever we're changing into? I'm drinking nothing with Crabbe's toenails in it—"

Hermione continued as though she had not heard him. "We don't have to worry about that yet, though, because we add those bits last..."

Ron turned, speechless, to Harry, who had another worry.

"D'you realize how much we're going to have to steal, Hermione? Shredded skin of a boomslang, that's definitely not in the students' cupboard. What're we going to do, break into Snape's private stores? I don't know if this is a good idea—" Harry held up his hands as Hermione snapped her book shut, ready to argue. "I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. We need to help Ginny any way we can. I'm just saying, we've been trying to stay on Snape's good side for so long now – difficult as it's been—"

"Yeah, and he's getting more confused around us by the day!" said Ron. "It would be a shame to just throw all that hard work away..."

Hermione huffed. "Well, any better ideas, then?"

"I don't know. Couldn't we mail-order them?" asked Harry. "It would take a little longer, I guess. We'd have to wait for the ingredients to arrive. How long does it take to brew, anyway?"

"Brilliant idea, Harry! I really should have thought of that, myself," grumbled Hermione. "And no, it won't take any longer. The fluxweed has got to be picked at the full moon and the lacewings have to be stewed for twenty-one days... So we'll need about a month, and we'll only need the ingredients we have to buy towards the end."

"A month?" said Ron. "Malfoy could have attacked half the muggleborns in the school by then!"

But Hermione's eyes narrowed dangerously again, and he added swiftly, "But it's the best plan we have, so full steam ahead, I say."

Harry got his Viridian book out of his bag. "Well, we do have one other thing we can try to do." He opened the book to the entry about the Confundus Charm as his friends gathered around him.

"I think we'll have to first learn the charm itself, before we can try the counter," said Hermione.

"Of course we do," sighed Ron. "How about you two try on me?" he asked hopefully.

"I can't believe you, Ron! How can you be so lazy? Even for your sister's sake—"

"Come on. We all know you'll get it first. It'll take forever if we have to wait for me to learn it!" said Ron.

Without too much complaining after that, Hermione got to work. She tried, and tried, and tried again to understand the spell and cast it, but nothing at all happened. Harry joined her a little later, because Hermione kept asking him if she was understanding the instructions correctly, anyway.

"Ron..." Hermione finally said quietly, after what felt like hours had passed. "I don't think we'll get it – at least today—" she amended, seeing Ron's crestfallen expression.

The unspoken fear – that the spell was far too difficult for them, no matter how much they worked on it – crept in, muting them all. Harry and Hermione knew the sensible next step – convincing Ron to ask adults for help – and dreaded it.

Harry had a raging headache at that point and stopping for the day sounded like the best idea he had heard in a while. "All right, let's try one final time," he still suggested valiantly, for Ron's sake.

Exhausted, he and Hermione lifted their wands once more. " _Confundo!_ " they shouted once more – this time simultaneously, quite by chance.

Ron gave a little start as the spells hit him. His eyes unfocused and his expression went blank. Hermione gasped and turned to an equally surprised Harry.

"Did it work?" she asked.

Harry opened his mouth to answer, but Hermione was not watching him. She dived for Curses and Countercurses, but before she could read anything, Ron gasped. He visibly shook himself and took a half-step back.

"What... What happened?" he asked, dazed.

Harry and Hermione performed a mad little dance around him, shouting, "It worked! It worked!", until Ron laughed in relief and joined them.

~HP~

Little did Hermione know that she was going to eat her words about Lockhart the very next day.

"Say it, Hermione," said Ron.

They were in the Hospital Wing after the quidditch match against Slytherin and Ron was helping Harry stuff his de-boned arm into the pyjama sleeve, while Hermione was on the other side of the curtain around Harry's bed.

There was a lengthy pause. "Fine, he's a stupid git," Hermione finally said. "Happy?" She sounded anything but.

"Getting there," Ron replied cheekily.

"Language, my dear," said Madam Pomfrey, as she came around the curtain, Skele-Gro in hand.

Hermione followed behind, wearing a put-out expression. The boys sniggered. She and Ron still had the rogue bludger to discuss with Harry, which had chased him around until it had managed to break his arm. If only Lockhart had not tried to 'help' him by vanishing all his bones in his arm, Harry thought angrily, as he forced down the vile-tasting potion.

"We won, though," said Ron, a grin breaking across his face. "That was some catch you made. Malfoy's face... he looked ready to kill!"

"I want to know how he fixed that bludger," said Hermione darkly.

There was no doubt in their minds that Malfoy had done it. The question was how to prove it. Not much could be discussed that day, though. The rest of the Gryffindor quidditch team turned up to visit Harry, which ended with Madam Pomfrey kicking everyone out of the hospital wing, leaving Harry with nothing to distract him from the pain.

~HP~

Severus met Minerva and Albus outside of the hospital wing. He was dressed in his usual black robes, despite the late hour. His older colleagues, on the other hand, were both wearing long dressing gowns, and Albus was even sporting a nightcap.

"You heard, then?" the headmaster asked gravely, without a trace of a twinkle in his eyes.

"I... I was still awake, and heard the portraits whispering. What is going on?"

Albus turned towards the staircase, to lead the way away from the hospital wing. "There was another attack. A student, this time—"

"Colin Creevey, one of my first-years," said Minerva. "I found him on the stairs. Poor boy – must have been trying to visit Potter, and now he's been petrified, and will have to remain so for months—"

"Potter again. He does seem to crop up, doesn't he?"

"Severus—" said Albus, before Minerva could get angry. "You don't believe any more than we do that Harry had anything to do with any of this—"

"Especially today – he's injured himself, in case you forgot," said Minerva. "All thanks to his, er, _favourite_ teacher."

Severus did, in fact, remember. He also remembered his misguided idea that Potter would be fond of Lockhart's style of teaching – Minerva always felt an unholy glee when she reminded him of that. "There was that business with the bludger, though – on the very day that another attack happened," he said instead slyly.

"Hardly a point in your favour, if Harry himself is a target of an attack," Albus pointed out reasonably. He slowed down as they reached the corridor leading to the headmaster's quarters.

Severus did not answer as they parted ways. He headed back to his chambers, unsettled. There was something very odd going on with Potter and his friends, that much he knew. All the strange events since the beginning of the year had centred around them. It was a shame that he had not been allowed to interrogate them properly after the attack on Filch's cat. Albus had insisted on letting them go after a measly few questions, half of which they had not answered truthfully, Severus was convinced.

There had been another reason why he was dissatisfied with his questioning of the Troublesome Trio, as he thought of them, much as he hated to admit it even to himself. He could have been harsher, he should have demanded that they be punished until they talked – Potter would crack soon enough if he was taken off the quidditch team, he was sure. However, he had not been able to even make the demand (though Albus would probably have vetoed it anyway).

Why? Because Potter and his friends had looked at him with hopeful eyes. Stuck in Lockhart's office, with Minerva, Albus, Filch and himself, their eyes had strayed to him as soon as Filch had demanded they be questioned. And that was not all. Ever since sparing Weasley for cursing Draco, they had developed this – very disturbing – lack of hatred for him. It was unnatural how – almost – well-behaved they were in his class.

No, letting Weasley get away with cursing Draco had not been one of his better ideas. And all for a rather sentimental reason – the situation had really nothing in common with the one it had reminded him of. But in that moment... Well, he had paid for that bit of foolishness. Lucius had not been impressed, of course, and it had taken all of Severus' persuasive skills to convince the elder Malfoys that he could not have acted differently. He still was not convinced that Lucius believed him.

And then the Troublesome Trio thinking he would turn a blind eye on whatever mischief they were concocting. As if. It was high time he started properly investigating their comings and goings.

~HP~

The trio in question had more serious problems to deal with at that time than Snape's paranoia. As soon as he left the hospital wing on Sunday morning, Harry tracked down his friends in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. They had overheard Professor McGonagall tell Professor Flitwick about Colin that morning and had already begun brewing the Polyjuice Potion. Harry still had more news for them, though, as Dobby had visited him the night before, and had dropped some very interesting bits of information.

"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened before?" Hermione said.

"This settles it," said Ron in a triumphant voice. "Lucius Malfoy must've opened the Chamber when he was at school here and now he's told dear old Draco how to do it. It's obvious. Wish Dobby'd told you what kind of monster's in there, though. I want to know how come nobody's noticed it sneaking around the school."

"Maybe it can make itself invisible," said Hermione, prodding leeches to the bottom of the cauldron. "Or maybe it can disguise itself – pretend to be a suit of armour or something – I've read about Chameleon Ghouls—"

"You read too much, Hermione," said Ron, pouring dead lacewings on top of the leeches. He crumpled up the empty lacewing bag and looked at Harry.

"So Dobby stopped us from getting on the train and broke your arm." He shook his head. "You know what, Harry? If he doesn't stop trying to save your life, he's going to kill you."

~HP~

The news that Colin Creevey had been attacked spread through the entire school by Monday morning. Rumours and suspicions were flying around, and a roaring trade in talismans, amulets, and other protective devices was sweeping the school. The first years were now moving around the castle in tight-knit groups, as though scared they would be attacked if they ventured forth alone.

It was Ginny's reaction Harry and his friends were most interested in. Unsurprisingly, she was distraught, but they could not learn anything about where she had been at the time of the attack. All they could find out was that she sat next to Colin Creevey in charms.

Ginny's other brothers had also noticed that she was distraught, but Harry felt that Fred and George were going the wrong way about cheering her up. They were taking turns covering themselves with fur or boils and jumping out at her from behind statues. They only stopped when Percy, apoplectic with rage, told them he was going to write to Mrs. Weasley and tell her Ginny was having nightmares.

Ron wanted to confront her right away, but Hermione stopped him. Instead, they spent every free minute they had over the next few days perfecting the counter to the Confundus Charm. This went for Ron as well, because now Hermione was convinced that their counter would be strongest if they all cast it together. Ron whined a little, but for his sister's sake he had to go along with it. Friday afternoon, Hermione finally deemed them ready.

They had to wait until dinner that evening. Ginny sat a little distance away from them, closer to Percy. She was writing in a leather-bound book, not paying too much attention to the other first-years around her – or even the food in front of her. Hermione followed her out of the Great Hall when she left.

"Ginny, wait a second," she said and hurried to catch up as the younger girl turned around. "I need to, er, go to the little girls' room, but I didn't want to go alone – what with me being a muggleborn..."

"Oh, sure, I'll come along," said Ginny. Her eyes remained clear, Hermione was happy to notice.

It was lucky that Moaning Myrtle's bathroom was located just above the Great Hall, and therefore the closest girls' bathroom from where they were. Ginny, her head buried in her book, followed behind without paying attention to where they were headed. Until they reached the corridor where Mrs. Norris had been petrified. There she stopped, taken aback.

"Why..." she began to say, looking at Hermione reproachfully. Then her face went slack. "Strange place to come to, if you're afraid of the attacks," she said calmly, coldly.

Hermione's eyes slid over the space inconspicuously, not knowing where the boys were exactly, as they were hidden under Harry's invisibility cloak, but still trying to give them a sign to be ready. Harry and Ron, who were only a few feet away, drew their wands. Ginny looked around more boldly, not trying to hide what she was doing. Her eyes bored into Harry's, as if the cloak was not there at all. She smirked.

The boys threw off the cloak, facing her.

"Now!" said Hermione, and all three of them cast the spell.

For one moment, they were sure it would work, as Ginny screamed and folded in on herself. But the next moment, she had straightened up, wand in hand. Without speaking, she cast spells to repel them, sending them sprawling on the floor. A moment later, none of them could move. She regarded them with a sneer, looking down at them.

"Interfering little pests. Really, I should have dealt with you all a lot sooner." She pointed her wand at Harry. "You most of all-" she began to say, but stopped.

The next moment, they all heard the footsteps coming closer. Ginny took off the spells she had cast on them and fled. Before Harry, Ron and Hermione had managed to get up from the floor and straighten their dishevelled appearance, Lockhart strolled down the corridor. The boys had never been so happy to see him, perverse as that was.

"Harry, Harry," said Lockhart. "You really ought to know better by now. Coming to this corridor of all places, and close to curfew. Really, young man, what sort of impression is that going to leave? Now, I know of course that there's no truth in those vicious rumours, but I hope you're not trying to disprove them by trying to play the hero-"

Lockhart went on in a similar fashion, as he led them back towards the Great Hall. Some of the teachers were still there, including Snape, who was being held up by Dumbledore. Harry was sure he must have heard at least some of what Lockhart had been telling them, as his suspicious eyes followed them all the way across the hall.

They kept walking and did not stop until they reached the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. Then Hermione slowed down, until the boys halted as well.

"What are we going to do now?" she said.


	8. Chapter 8

Ron looked at his friends wildly as they looked to him to decide what to do about Ginny. Averting his eyes from their pale faces, he stared at the entrance of the common room. She might be behind that very door... What would happen when they met again? Would it matter if there were other people around?

"Ron..." Harry began hesitantly.

"I know." Ron swallowed and nodded. "We need to tell an adult."

"Dumbledore might still be in the Great Hall," said Hermione briskly. "If we hurry-"

"But Snape-"

"Never mind him, Ron," said Harry. Now that Ron had finally agreed, he and Hermione were in a rush to tell an adult. "He can't be too much of a git with the headmaster around-"

"And we really can't face Ginny ourselves again. She cast non-verbal spells!" said Hermione.

Ron nodded. They turned around and ran back the way they had come, not heeding the portraits admonishing them along the way.

Lockhart was striding up the grand staircase leading to the Great Hall. He started when he noticed them. "Back again so soon? Didn't you just head back to your common room? I do hope you don't plan on breaking curfew-"

Harry and his friends exchanged panicked glances, thinking how best to get rid of him, when the door to the Great Hall opened and Snape stepped out.

"Professor Snape!" Hermione called at once.

Snape raised his eyebrows, looking taken aback. Students – especially those loathed by him – did not casually address him.

"Professor, we were looking for the headmaster-" Hermione went on.

"At this hour?" Lockhart chimed in. "Now, now, you wouldn't have caused some trouble, would you? What is it about? I'm sure Severus here – and I, of course – will be able to help you with whatever-"

Harry and his friends shot Snape a frantic look as Lockhart prattled on.

"He just left the Great Hall through the entrance to the left of the High Table. You should still be able to catch up to him," said Snape, his face a blank mask.

"Now, Severus, I'm sure there's no need for that! What could be so important that you'd need to inconvenience the headmaster at this hour-"

"Gilderoy, I've reconsidered," Snape interrupted brusquely. "I want to hear about this idea of a duel club after all. My office is closer." With that he began walking briskly, forcing Lockhart to follow behind. He shot Harry, Ron and Hermione an absolutely murderous glance as he passed them.

Lesser students in less dire circumstances might have frozen in place under such a glare, but not them. Before Lockhart's protestations had even gone out of earshot, they had hurried through the now deserted Great Hall and out the other door.

"Professor Dumbledore!" Ron began to call as they ran through a small chamber, lined with portraits, before they could even see whether the headmaster was around.

Harry joined him. There was an urgency now, as they began to feel a delayed dread of what had happened. When they reached the other entrance of the chamber, they looked around frantically, needing to decide which way to turn. Then they heard footsteps. A moment later, Dumbledore was walking back toward them.

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger. What seems to be the problem here?" he said, before he had even reached them. There was ill-disguised worry in his eyes, though he tried to keep his tone light.

"It's my sister, Professor. She – she-" Ron's voice hitched.

"Miss Ginerva Weasley. Did something happen to her?"

"She's not herself," Hermione took over. "She hasn't been herself for some time now, actually-"

Dumbledore's expression became wary. "Where is she? Could you please tell me what exactly happened."

"We think that someone's been putting her under some dark spell, but we don't know what-"

The boys joined her, to describe Ginny's unusual behaviour.

"How long has this been going on?" said Dumbledore, shaking his head. He looked at them with grave, urgent eyes. "I wish you had come to me sooner-"

"We didn't want to get her in trouble," said Ron. "We weren't even sure we weren't imagining it all – until this evening."

"What happened this evening?"

"We wanted to see if she was, maybe, confounded, so we – well, I – asked her to go along with me, and then we cast the counter-spell," said Hermione.

The boys then joined in to describe how that had gone. "...and then Lockhart – er, Professor Lockhart – turned up, and she fled. We don't know where she's gone," finished Ron.

Before he had even heard the whole explanation, Dumbledore was striding toward the nearest portraits, giving them instructions to find Ginny, and while her brother, Harry and Hermione tried to keep up with him, he hurried along the corridor, wand already drawn.

"Tell me everything suspicious you noticed about her, everything that might give us a clue as to who could have done this," said Dumbledore. It sounded like a command. His wand was moving in intricate patterns, while they walked. Occasionally he would mutter strange words under his breath as well.

Harry and his friends tried their best to oblige. They told him everything they had actually observed, though they kept some of their wilder suspicions to themselves. "...and she called us _little_ pests, so whoever's cursing her must be older, right?" suggested Hermione, recalling Ginny's exact words.

"It does sound like it, yes," said Dumbledore grimly. "If what I fear has happened... Though even if she had been confounded, I don't understand what you hoped you could do to help her." He sounded like he was trying not to begin admonishing them right away – while they had something more important to do.

"Well, we learned the counter, of course," said Hermione, a little breathlessly, as she hurried to keep up with the headmaster's longer strides. "Took us the whole week..."

Dumbledore actually drew up short and regarded her disbelievingly. "Miss Granger, you're usually more sensible than that. You could not have supposed to learn the counter-spell to an already advanced charm in a few days-"

"But we did!"

"We did learn it!" the boys protested at once.

"It's easier when we all cast it together," said Ron defensively, taking the headmaster's clearly disbelieving look personally.

The headmaster was about to argue, when the portrait of a rather out-of-breath looking woman in seventeenth-century dress ran into the painting next to them. "Professor Dumbledore, sir. The student you were looking for – the Weasley girl-" she huffed.

"Yes, where is she?" The headmaster immediately turned toward her, voice urgent.

"She was seen running toward the hospital wing."

They almost ran.

"But what would she want there?" asked Ron.

No one answered him. The few older students they ran into stepped out of the way, shooting them bewildered looks, but no one thought to question the headmaster. Up the stairs they went, across corridors, until they neared the hospital corridor. Their footsteps echoed off the walls, reinforcing the impression that they were the only people there.

They came around the bend and saw her. The vivid red hair spread around her head made it impossible to misidentify her.

"GINNY!" With a desperate shout, Ron ran toward the small shape crumpled on the ground beneath the window. Moonlight streaming in was just hitting the edges of Ginny's hair, who was lying face down as if she had suddenly fallen asleep on the spot.

"Mr. Weasley, wait!" said Professor Dumbledore, hurrying to catch up with him.

"Oh, no, no. Ginny," Ron was whimpering and mumbling, trying to shake her awake, but she was frozen in place, like a statue.

"Mr. Weasley, let me have a look at her, please." Dumbledore, voice firm but very kind, urged Ron to move out of the way as he knelt down and cast spells over her shape. "She's also been petrified, unfortunately. But beyond that, she doesn't seem hurt. I can't say with absolute certainty yet, but I'm convinced that whatever had possessed her no longer has a hold on her now." He straightened back up.

"I... I'll go get Madam Pomfrey," mumbled Harry, averting his eyes from the pained, hunched-over form of his best friend. It was the only remotely useful thing he could think to do.

"Yes, that might be best-" Dumbledore began to say.

"Wait, look!" said Hermione.

Harry, midway to the entrance of the hospital wing, turned back around. Hermione was looking transfixed at the windowpane. Following her gaze, he saw what she had discovered. There were letters drawn on the fogged window, spelling _Tom Ri__ in a shaky hand. The last letter extended into a drawn out line running toward the bottom edge of the window. With a lurch of his heart, Harry realised the writing must have broken off as Ginny fell.

"Tom Ri... Who can that be?" Hermione wondered aloud.

"Mr. Potter, please go get the matron." The headmaster's voice was unusually grim as he went to the window and wiped the name away with his hand.

Madam Pomfrey followed Harry outside, and together, she and Professor Dumbledore carried Ginny inside. She was laid on the bed next to Colin's. For a moment, they all stood in silence around her bed, contemplating how the situation had escalated since the attack on Mrs. Norris.

"Would you three please follow me to my office? I'll make sure you don't get in trouble for breaking curfew." said Dumbledore. He did not explain himself further, until they had left the hospital wing behind.

"What about my brothers, Professor?" asked Ron. "I have to tell them what happened," he added very softly.

Dumbledore sighed. "Of course. I won't keep you for long. But there are a few things I need clarified. And... we might also think about what you want to tell your brothers," he added carefully.

"Are we in trouble?" asked Hermione.

"No, you're not. I'm merely curious about some of the things you mentioned. When you thought that Miss Weasley might be confounded, you – instead of asking one of your professors for help, might I add – decided to try to cast the counter-curse-"

"It was all my fault." Ron covered his face with his hands. "I didn't want to get her in trouble, but I made everything so much worse for her..."

"Perhaps not so, Mr. Weasley. At least she's no longer under the malevolent influence of another."

"Tom something-or-other," said Hermione. "Professor, do you know who that is?" she asked with quiet conviction, certain of the answer.

"I-" Dumbledore hesitated. "I believe I do, and I'll tell you what I can later, but-"

"Do you think he was the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets the first time around?" asked Harry, too curious to be careful.

Dumbledore stopped walking, and stared at them, not hiding his surprise. He chuckled. "Well, if I'm answering your questions rather than the other way around, we better wait until we reach my office and have more privacy."

Harry flushed, while Hermione mumbled an apology. They continued on in silence. Marching around a corner, they stopped before a large and extremely ugly stone gargoyle.

"Lemon drop!" said Professor Dumbledore.

This was evidently a password, because the gargoyle sprang suddenly to life and hopped aside as the wall behind him split in two. Behind the wall a spiral staircase was moving smoothly upward. As they stepped onto it, Harry heard the wall thud closed behind them. They rose upward in circles, until at last, they reached a gleaming oak door, with a brass knocker in the shape of a griffin.

At a wave of the headmaster's wand, the door opened silently and they entered. Harry and his friends looked around. One thing was certain: of all the teachers' offices he had visited so far this year, Dumbledore's was by far the most interesting. It was a large and beautiful circular room, full of funny little noises. A number of curious silver instruments stood on spindle-legged tables, whirring and emitting little puffs of smoke. The walls were covered with portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses, snoozing gently in their frames. There was also an enormous, claw-footed desk, and, sitting on a shelf behind it, a shabby, tattered wizard's hat – the Sorting Hat.

A noise behind them made them jump and turn around. Standing on a golden perch behind the door was a strange-looking bird, as large as a turkey, with colourful plumage that would have looked beautiful, had it not been patchy in places. The bird looked balefully back at the newcomers.

Dumbledore had barely waved his wand again to conjure three armchairs for his guests, when the door sprung open again and Snape walked in, coming to a sudden stop at the sight of his students. He quickly composed himself. "I see you found him," he addressed Harry and his friends dismissively, before turning to the headmaster. "Albus, I was about to inform you that certain... more disruptive members of our student body had been looking for you rather urgently, for-" He glanced over the students in question suspiciously. "-unknown reasons. But I see they've found you already."

The headmaster nodded gravely. "And indeed very dire circumstances have brought them to me. Miss Weasley has been petrified." He suppressed a sigh.

Snape looked taken aback. "When was that?" He looked at the three students, standing subdued next to the conjured armchairs. "You couldn't have known this when I last saw you," he deduced shrewdly. "They had been discovered by Lockhart loitering around the third-floor girls' bathroom," he recounted. "They left, only to return soon after. Lockhart intercepted them again and I was forced to – intervene – to allow them to find you. They seemed quite frantic," he explained to Dumbledore.

"That was just after Ginny had attacked us," Ron said softly. "We – I – needed a moment to decide that we'd help her more if we reported her."

Hermione took up the explanation from there, telling Snape most of what they had told Dumbledore. She did not tell him about their attempt to cast the Confundus counter-spell, though, just said that they had confronted Ginny, who had easily disarmed them, before fleeing to avoid being seen by Lockhart. Harry had to admire her caution: if Dumbledore was surprised and wanted to know all the details of their wand experiments, it was probably better not to mention any of it in front of Snape.

The headmaster continued the tale from there, without filling in any of the gaps in Hermione's narrative. In fact, he himself did not mention the name Ginny had written on the window.

Snape, sat in one of the conjured chairs, listened broodingly, hands crossed in front of his chest. "So whoever is terrorising the school has now begun possessing students as well," he said at last. "And a pureblood, at that-"

Harry and Ron were about to protest, but Dumbledore nodded.

"Whoever it is, doesn't quite seem to keep to his profile, does he?" he said.

"The parents will be in uproar," said Snape.

Harry was about to protest again, when he noticed Hermione's bent head. Of course, he realised with a lurching feeling. Only muggleborn children had been thought to be in danger so far, whose parents, like Hermione's, only had limited knowledge of what went on at Hogwarts, and no influence on the school governors at all.

Dumbledore sighed. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. First, we have to let the rest of the school know what has transpired." He looked expectantly at Snape, who responded with a jerky nod.

"I'll go inform the rest of the staff, then. Unless there's anything else...?" Snape left as soon as the headmaster shook his head.

"Possessed..." mumbled Ron, as the door fell shut behind the billowing black robes. "That's what it was, then? Not a spell, not even a really bad one-"

"From what you described of her behaviour, it does seem the most likely explanation," Dumbledore said gently, but honestly.

"Well, that spell, the forbidden one-" began Harry.

"Unforgivable," corrected Ron.

"Yeah. That would hardly have been better-"

"But possessed? Like Quirrel?" Ron looked nauseated by the very thought.

"Oh, no, Ron," implored Hermione, her compassion for him twisting her face into an expression of almost physical pain.

The bird made a curious sound at that moment and then suddenly flew over, to settle into Ron's lap, much to the boy's surprise. "What-"

"Fawkes..." his owner said fondly as the bird began to sing a strange, almost hypnotic song. "He's trying to comfort you," he explained. "Fawkes is a phoenix, Mr. Weasley. Fascinating creatures, phoenixes. They can carry immensely heavy loads, their tears have healing powers, and their song gives comfort and strength to the listener."

For a moment they all sat in silence and listened to the song, while Ron petted the bird's patchy feathers, strangely touched. "Thank you, Fawkes," he said much more calmly. The bird nudged him with his beak before settling back on his perch.

Hermione shifted in her seat. "Whoever's been possessing her can't be as bad as – as you-know-who, so it's not the same thing. It's not." She looked to Dumbledore, hoping for confirmation, but he was staring at his desk and would not meet her eyes. "R-right, professor? This Tom Whatshisname-"

"Of course Miss Weasley is not in the same state as Quirrel," Dumbledore said decisively. "She is unhurt – besides being petrified, of course, and no longer possessed. I cannot tell you not to be affected by her ordeal, of course, but I can assure you, you need not worry about her-"

"But – well, who is this Tom Ri... person?" asked Harry, aware that the headmaster was dodging the question, but too curious to let it go. "You wouldn't even mention him in front of Snape-"

"Professor Snape, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore sighed again, but then nodded. "All right. I suppose you need some answers. Let's do it this way, then. I'll tell you what I can, and in exchange you tell me about this confundus charm you tried." He waited for the students to exchange looks and finally nod.

"Tom Riddle..." the headmaster began. "He used to be a student at this school many years ago, indeed during the time the Chamber of Secrets was opened for the first time." He paused, dark thoughts passing over his features. "For all my suspicions, though, I could never find any proof that he had anything to do with that. Then, once I had openly begun interrogating him, he suddenly, er, _discovered_ that another student had let a dangerous creature live on school grounds. That student was expelled, the attacks stopped, and everyone was left to assume that the monster within the Chamber had been dealt with. Tom Riddle received an award for special services to the school." Dumbledore's mouth twisted bitterly.

"Oh, yeah, I think I remember seeing that," said Ron. "It's... not far from where our award is kept, actually."

"But if he was a student years ago-" Hermione began with a deep frown.

"Decades, actually," interrupted the headmaster. "How is he involved now, you want to know? Well, I'm afraid I can't answer that. I'd like to know the same thing, as a matter of fact." He sighed again, his eyes refocusing on his visitors, indicating that he had said all he intended. "Well, now it's your turn, I believe."

Harry and his friends exchanged uncomfortable looks. Where to begin?

"Well, we found the counter-spell in a book I have-" he began.

"Oh I'd just started reading this book I got for my birthday, and we'd been trying to cast spells together-" Hermione said simultaneously.

"It all started with my wand, I think, with Ollivander giving Hermione _ideas_ ," Ron added to the jumbled explanation.

Dumbledore, with ever widening eyes, began asking questions, the answers to which led to even more questions about the trio's extracurricular activities. He could not suppress the odd exclamation, despite his best intentions. He looked disapproving at the mention of Vindictus Viridian's book, but did not comment. However, he visibly sat forward as soon as the words 'wandlore' and 'affinity' were mentioned.

Harry, Ron and Hermione did not need long to notice how impressed the headmaster was with all they had accomplished. Despite the difficult circumstances, they perked up and began telling him almost everything in detail. They were only careful not to say anything about why Ron had needed a new wand, but though Dumbledore commented, surprised, on the fact that Ollivander had sold them a wand without an adult present, he did not care about much else after Hermione said how surprised the wandmaker had been at the trio's chosen wands. The headmaster himself was no less surprised at the coincidences surrounding them.

"And then I got books about wandlore for my birthday, and I was reading about affinity and how people used to-" Hermione was saying.

"That's a rather advanced topic, Miss Granger-"

"Oh, I know, I found out. But the book my parents gave me was picked by Mrs. Weasley. It's mostly just the history of wands and a few fun facts-"

"Did it talk about the time before wands came into use? About affinity between wizards?" asked Dumbledore.

Hermione nodded. "So of course we had to try it out." She went on to describe their experiments.

Dumbledore, instead of rushing her to move on to the topic, kept asking her about more details, before moving on to answering her questions. "No, Miss Granger, affinity is not as simple as matching cores or wand woods. It has a lot to do with the intent of the casters. And with understanding each other's intent. People who know each other very well – friends, say – usually do better. Though wand cores do contribute in some ways, as well. Dragon heartstring cores tend to repel quite aggressively, while unicorn hair cores usually just refuse to do anything at all."

Harry soon interrupted to move the tale on, before Hermione got caught up in details. He quickly talked about Ginny's suspicious behaviour, and how they had tried to make sense of it without getting her in trouble. "And then we found the Confundus spell in my book and thought that might be what was wrong with her," he went on quickly, before Ron could start blaming himself again. "To learn the counter, we first had to learn the spell of course, but it was fiendishly difficult—"

"Indeed it is," said Dumbledore with a shake of his head. "I still can't believe..."

"Hermione and Harry both tried for ages, but nothing at all happened," said Ron. "But then they cast together by accident, and next thing I know, they were dancing around me in circles, shouting, 'It worked, it worked'. It was really weird."

Dumbledore chuckled, before asking them for a demonstration. On his person, no less. He chuckled once again at their bewildered looks, his eyes twinkling merrily. "Now don't hold back. It's not every day that you get permission to attack a professor."

The three friends gingerly got up and pointed their wands at him, somewhere around the beard. The boys looked at Hermione for guidance.

"At three?" she suggested, and began to count slowly at their nods.

The attack was unimpressive, to say the least. They did not quite manage to be simultaneous, for one.

"That's what I was saying about intent," the headmaster said gently, aware of their embarrassed looks. "The main difficulty in casting spells together is being of the same mind – wanting exactly the same thing, at the same time. Please try a few more times. I believe being under duress helped you succeed the previous time, but I would really like to see if you can manage once again-"

He had barely finished talking when he was hit by the triple spell, perfectly aligned this time. The counter followed an instant later, and he came to the sight of his panicked students, rather shell-shocked at their success.

"Professor, are – are you all right?" asked Harry.

Dumbledore was more than all right, as he enthusiastically congratulated them on their success, explained some more, and finally sent them back to their dorm.

Halfway there, Hermione stopped in her tracks. "Her book!" she said out of the blue.

"What?"

"Her book, Ron! That leather-bound book Ginny kept writing in. She had it with her when I asked her to walk with me. And she made sure to take it with her when she ran away from Professor Lockhart."

"I don't think I saw it with her when..." Harry trailed off.

"Neither did I, but..." Ron grimaced. If there was the slightest chance that something might shed a light on whoever had done this to his sister, they had to find it.

They walked to the deserted corridor where they had found Ginny, tired as they were. Unfortunately, they did not find anything there. Slowly, they turned around to walk to their dorms.

"We'll keep looking for it," said Hermione, not letting herself be disheartened. "It's bound to turn up eventually."


	9. Chapter 9

The news that Ginny had been petrified spread past the school borders in no time at all. Ron had barely had time to talk to his brothers on Saturday morning, before his parents arrived. The whole family huddled around the bed of the youngest member, and particularly Mrs. Weasley seemed inconsolable.

Harry and Hermione stayed around long enough to answer all the questions Ginny's parents had for them. They did not want to leave Ron alone for the questioning, especially as they were leaving out quite a lot of detail. As soon as they left, Hermione told Harry how sorry she felt for Ron, having to more or less lie to his family in such a difficult moment.

Later, when Ron found them again, he had much to tell them. Mrs. Weasley apparently had had enough and had decided to take her children home. This, however, was met with resistance from two sources. First, Madam Pomfrey insisted that Ginny was better off at Hogwarts than she would be at St. Mungo's. She calmly explained to the girl's distressed mother that there was no Restorative Draught to be had at the hospital either, at that time of year, and eventually Ginny would end up waking up disoriented in a completely different place, unable to remember how she got there, and with no guarantee that someone of her family would be allowed to be present when she was given the draught to revive her.

Next came Percy. He would not hear any suggestion of leaving school – a mere sixth year he might be, but for him preparations for NEWTs had already begun and such a thing was completely unthinkable for him. He and his mother fought, but Percy would not budge. Finally, Mr Weasley managed to make them agree on a compromise: they would at least put off the fight until the school governors had decided whether to close the whole school.

A dark, depressing mood had settled over Hogwarts, as everyone waited for news from the school governors. The students were encouraged to stay in their dorms as much as possible, and to travel in groups to the Great Hall when necessary.

Harry and his friends, meanwhile, spent the day finding ways to sneak away to the third floor girls' bathroom to continue brewing their polyjuice potion. Hermione opened their owl post, revealing a few of the ingredients they had ordered.

"We won't need to add these for a few days yet," she said almost regretfully.

"We might not need to add them at all," sighed Ron. "Who knows if Malfoy is really involved?"

"He's still our best lead—" began Harry.

"Is he, though? If Ginny thinks that Tom Whatshisname did — whatever he did, maybe we should try to find him instead?"

Harry and Hermione exchanged troubled looks, neither willing to point out the difficulties with such a task.

"Well, we'll do what we can, of course," Hermione said finally, "but if we give up the potion now, we won't be able to come back to it, because it takes so long to brew it. And what if we need it after all?"

"Fine. Yeah. Let's do it. What are we doing today, then?" Ron crouched down in front of the potions book, to look at the instructions, something he had never bothered with before. His friends grimaced at his turned back.

Ron grew restless again as soon as they had dealt with the potion. Doing homework was unthinkable, and none of their usual distractions – not even the promise to win at chess against Hermione – seemed enough to take his mind off his worries.

"How about we practice casting spells together?" Harry finally suggested with a sigh. Not the best option, to let Ron deal with his frustrations with a wand, but he did not have any better ideas.

The other boy instantly jumped at the offer, before Hermione could veto it. So they grabbed Harry's _Curses and Counter-curses_ and went back to Myrtle's bathroom. Ron would have tried the more vicious curses straight away, but Hermione talked him out of it. They began with spells they had learned at school, sometimes all three of them together and sometimes in pairs.

Ron was as focused as he had ever been when trying to learn new spells. He was the most motivated, the most energetic, but the more he tried, the worse the results got. First, the simplest spells would not work if he was one of the casters, but soon more violent reactions followed. After another explosion cracked several tiles in the bathroom, Hermione called quits despite Ron's complaints.

"Ron, don't you remember what Professor Dumbledore told us? If we're not all on the same page, casting together isn't a good idea. I actually read that you can have very bad accidents, if you're not careful."

"Really? What can we do to avoid those?" asked Harry.

Hermione shook her head, looking dissatisfied. "There isn't anything we can do. That's the whole reason wands were invented. Even people who've known each other for ever and have cast spells together – even people with strong magical affinity – can still have accidents. But Professor Dumbledore seemed to think it was a good idea..."

"Maybe he thinks it's worth the risk," said Ron impatiently.

"Maybe he thinks that we'll be safer learning it in the long run, despite the risk of accidents," Harry agreed. He did not need to point out what level of danger Dumbledore predicted for them.

Come Monday, they were only too happy that they had kept the potion. During breakfast, it was announced that the school governors had decided against closing Hogwarts. Neville, whose grandmother was closely acquainted with one of the governors, had interesting rumours to pass on: Apparently everyone had expected the school to be closed until the meeting, when a suspiciously confident Lucius Malfoy had made a little speech against closing the school and enough people had agreed – people who had seemed of a different opinion just a day before – that he had won.

"That slimy, rat-faced bastard," Ron was hissing all the way to their first class, despite Hermione's best attempts to control his language.

"Well, at least we now have a lead again," said Harry.

"Yeah, if only our potion were already finished."

"Well, the boomslang skin will be delivered next week, well in time, which only leaves us with the bicorn horn," said Hermione. "I don't know why they didn't write us anything about that..." She checked the letter from the Hogsmeade apothecary once again, looking dissatisfied.

That little mystery was solved a few days later, nearing the end of November. A post owl brought another letter from the apothecary, apologising and informing them that they had run out of bicorn horn powder and would not get in another batch until the new year.

"What do we do now?" asked Harry. "Rob Snape after all?"

Ron shook his head dismissively. "There has to be another shop," he almost demanded of Hermione.

"There's the one in Diagon Alley, of course." She frowned. "But it isn't listed in the catalogue. I guess we can still try to write to them and see if they'll deliver..."

They sent the letter right away. Things were not to be that easy, though. The answer, which came a few days later, was apologetic, but informed them that the apothecary did not deliver potions ingredients by post. The shop did, however, store bicorn horn which they were welcome to buy if they chose to visit in person.

"We can't just give up," decided Harry, seeing Ron's disappointment. "There has to be a way-"

"What can we do? Short of going to London-"

"Well, why not?" said Ron. "I could go home over the holidays. Not the best time to be away, but at least-"

Hermione shook her head. "No, that won't do, Ron. It's almost December now and the potion is already half finished. We need to add the bicorn horn – let me think – not as soon as the boomslang skin – that has to be added no more than a fortnight after the half-time mark – and the bicorn horn no more than a week after that – so just before the end of term," she concluded, her shoulders drooping.

The discussion had to be shelved, unresolved. Days passed, without any of them having come up with a solution. In the second week of December Professor McGonagall came around as usual, collecting names of those who would be staying at school for Christmas. Harry and Hermione signed her list; Ron reluctantly followed suit. He had still been considering leaving, but then they had heard that Malfoy was staying, which struck them as very suspicious.

The boomslang skin had to be added by the end of that week, and as Thursday afternoon's double Potions lesson loomed nearer, the thought to steal the bicorn horn from Snape's private stores began to sound both more tempting and more terrifying. "What we'd need," Hermione was saying on Wednesday evening in their common room, "would be a diversion. Something loud and flashy. Then one of us could sneak into Snape's office and take what we need."

Harry and Ron looked at her nervously, still unwilling to commit to the plan. Then Ron huffed and walked over to the farthest, darkest corner, where Fred and George were discussing something suspiciously quietly with Lee Jordan. Harry heard him ask for a Filibuster firework. His brothers asked a few questions, of course, but seeing that Ron was not answering but still adamant about wanting the firework, Fred shrugged.

"All right, fine. We can get more next weekend in Hogsmeade, I guess. Remind me when we go up and I'll get it for you."

"The next Hogsmeade trip is next Saturday, just before the end of term. Would that be too late to add the bicorn horn?" Harry asked, perfectly calmly, once Ron had sat down again, and watched his friends' eyes widen as they understood what an outrageous thing he was suggesting.

Harry wrote to Sirius that evening. It was mostly a short update of the happenings of the last few days, but it also contained a rather whiny — in Harry's opinion — paragraph about the upcoming Hogsmeade trip. He bemoaned the fact that he would need his guardians' permission to go the following year — something he doubted he would get. It was such a shameless thing to do, making Sirius feel needlessly responsible for Harry's misery at the Dursleys' hands.

The letter was a success, however. Sirius sent back several feet of parchment, tightly written on both sides. There was reassurance that there were always possibilities, and tales of Sirius and Harry's dad and their friends sneaking in and out of the castle as they pleased, for various questionable reasons – Sirius' idea of 'other possibilities' for Harry to consider. This in itself would have been reason enough for Harry to think the letter a success. But more importantly, it also contained references to secret passages out of the school – and into Hogsmeade.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were so excited, they forgot all about the dangers and deadlines for potions. The boys began bringing up mentions of the vague locations Sirius had hinted at around Ron's twin brothers. Fred and George were the only students the three could think of who might possibly have heard about one of the passages.

Ron was talking about 'the mirror on the fourth floor' – a quote from the letter that none of them knew anything more about, when the twins finally cracked. They crowded the younger boys, standing on either side of them.

"Now, which mirror would that be?" asked Fred suspiciously.

"Oh, you know, just… a mirror," Harry said mock-evasively. He would not look at Ron, for fear of giving themselves away.

"Right. Like the statue of Gregory the Smarmy is just a statue," drawled George.

Harry could not resist a look at Ron. So his brothers knew about at least two passages.

"So, what business exactly would you have with this mirror that is just-a-mirror?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing. But why are you so interested in it?" asked Ron in his best innocent voice.

It was the twins' turn to exchange looks. "Well, alright—"

"We'll give first—"

"Just to show how impressed we're with you."

"Yeah, never would have thought you capable of it…"

"Why, thanks," said Ron sarcastically.

"Don't be so prickly, we said we're impressed."

"So, the mirror. Or, the passage behind the mirror…" Fred went on in a barely audible voice. "Will you tell us what you want to do there?"

"We just wanted to, er, test some fireworks and dung bombs," fibbed Harry.

The alarmed looks on the twins' faces were unexpected. "Ickle second-years," George said with a mournful shake of his head.

"Biting off more than they can chew," Fred agreed.

"What?" Ron asked impatiently.

"It's… that passage is becoming unstable. Fireworks would be—"

"Really dangerous, actually." George shook his head.

"Oh. So then, which passage would you recommend?" Harry asked boldly.

"Keep your voice down, will you?" Fred hissed. "The one behind Gregory's statue is too narrow, I get that. Hmm, should we tell them…?"

"Maybe they already know?" George regarded them speculatively.

"Know what?" asked Ron.

The twins moved closer together to discuss something. "Do you know about the passage behind the statue of the one-eyed witch?"

Sirius had mentioned that one as well, but the boys shook their heads.

"All right," Fred said with a sigh. "But don't get caught and make me regret this. Here's what you need to do…"

It was a mere couple of days before the Hogsmeade trip, and Harry, Ron and Hermione's whole attention was taken by planning for it. They were walking across the entrance hall when they could not miss a knot of people gathered around the notice board, reading a piece of parchment that had just been pinned up. Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas beckoned them over, looking excited.

"They're starting a Dueling Club!" said Seamus. "First meeting tonight! I wouldn't mind dueling lessons; they might come in handy one of these days..."

"What, you reckon Slytherin's monster can duel?" said Ron, but he, too, read the sign with interest.

"Could be useful," he said to Harry and Hermione as they went into dinner. "Shall we go?"

Harry and Hermione were too excited by the prospect to say no, despite their planning getting interrupted, so at eight o'clock that evening they hurried back to the Great Hall. The long dining tables had vanished and a golden stage had appeared along one wall, lit by thousands of candles floating overhead. The ceiling was velvety black once more and most of the school seemed to be packed beneath it, all carrying their wands and looking excited.

Harry groaned when he saw Lockhart in plum coloured robes, and realised he would be teaching them. Snape, dressed in his usual black was not far behind.

"Oh, of course. We heard them talk about this when..." Hermione trailed off, not wanting to mention how Ginny had ended in the hospital wing.

"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," said Lockhart, flashing a wide smile, once he had tired of talking about himself. "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry — you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him, never fear!"

"Wouldn't it be good if Snape finished him off? It might even get him in enough trouble to lay off students for a while," Ron muttered in Harry's ear.

Snape's upper lip was curling. Harry wondered why Lockhart was still smiling; if Snape had been looking at him like that he would have been running as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

The demonstration went as expected, with Lockhart explaining and demonstrating all the theatrics of duelling, while Snape looked on irritably. The actual duel was over before it had begun: with Lockhart sprawled on the floor and Snape holding his opponent's wand after his formidable _Expelliarmus_. He quickly handed it over to Lavender Brown, who was standing nearby, looking concerned like many other students. In fact, only Malfoy and some of the other Slytherins were cheering.

While scrambling to his feet and recovering his wand, Lockhart tried to suggest that he had let Snape win, rather than being defeated, but quickly stopped at the Slytherin professor's murderous look.

"Enough demonstrating!" he said, "I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me—"

They moved through the crowd, matching up partners. Snape made a beeline for the farthest corner away from Harry and his friends, as if he could not get away from them far enough. Lockhart, about to pair Neville with Justin Finch-Fletchley, spotted them and reconsidered. "Actually, I think you could use Mr. Potter's help, Mr., er...''

"Longbottom," said Neville, flushing from embarrassment.

"And you, Mr. Weasley, can partner Mr. Finnigan," he decided, clearly happy with his choices.

This, it turned out, left Justin to pair with Malfoy and Hermione with Bulstrode, a large and square Slytherin girl.

"Face your partners!" called Lockhart, back on the stage, "and bow!"

Harry saw Neville fumble through a bow as he himself distractedly bowed back, his attention on Hermione. He saw her smile nervously at her opponent, who did not smile back.

"Wands at the ready!" shouted Lockhart. "When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponent – _only_ to disarm them – we don't want any accidents. One... two... three..."

"You can go ahead and try first, Harry," said Neville, drawing Harry's attention.

"Alright," he said, trying to ignore the erupting chaos around them as all other pairs of students disregarded the instructions and broke out in full-fledged duels. "Let me see... _Expelliarmus!_ "

Not unexpectedly, this did not have the intended result. Neither did Neville manage to do much of anything on his try. Harry tried to recall the wand movement, but he kept getting distracted by the other duels. Ron was holding his own against Seamus and seemed to be enjoying himself, but the same could not be said about Hermione or many other students around them. Lockhart's cries of 'disarm only' were being completely ignored.

"Maybe try together?" asked Neville quietly, following his line of vision.

Harry gave him a surprised look, then nodded slowly. They had involved Neville in their experiments a couple of times – often enough, apparently, for him to get an inkling of what they were up to.

"On three," Harry said quietly, but before they could try, Bulstrode tackled Hermione and wrestled her wand out of her hand.

Fed up, Harry ran over to them to pull the Slytherin girl off his friend, just as Lockhart began to shout for them to stop. It was difficult. She was a lot bigger than he was.

Snape finally took charge and ended all the duels with a _Finite Incantatem._ A haze of greenish smoke was hovering over the hall. Several students were lying on the floor, panting. Others were whimpering in pain.

"Dear, dear," said Lockhart, skittering through the crowd, looking at the aftermath of the duels. "Up you get, Macmillan... careful there, Miss Fawcett... pinch it hard, it'll stop bleeding in a second, Boot...

"I think I'd better teach you how to _block_ unfriendly spells," said Lockhart, standing flustered in the midst of the hall. He glanced at Snape, whose black eyes glinted, and looked quickly away. "Let's have a volunteer pair – Potter and Longbottom, how about you?"

"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart," said Snape, gliding over like a large and malevolent bat. "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. We wouldn't want to send what's left of Potter up to the hospital wing in a matchbox, would we?"

Harry, though glad to have avoided the public display grew angry as he watched Neville's round pink face go pinker.

"How about Malfoy and Finch-Fletchley?" said Snape, moving over to that pair – and far away from Harry.

Justin did not look good, Harry noted. He was still panting and seemed to be favouring his left leg, as he was directed by Lockhart towards the middle of the hall. Everyone else backed away to give them room.

Lockhart tried to demonstrate the spell to Justin, but ended up dropping his wand instead. Snape smirked, then moved closer to Malfoy and whispered something to him that made the boy smirk as well. A nervous-looking Justin tried to ask for help, but was ignored.

"Three, two, one, go!" shouted Lockhart.

Malfoy raised his wand quickly and bellowed, " _Serpensortia!"_

The end of his wand exploded. Harry watched, aghast, as a long black snake shot out of it, fell heavily onto the floor in front of Justin and raised itself, ready to strike. There were screams as the crowd backed swiftly away, clearing the floor.

"Don't move, Finch-Fletchley-" Snape began to say, but the Hufflepuff boy panicked and fell backwards into Lockhart, who had drawn his own wand – supposedly to try to help and show off himself.

The heavy banging further enraged the snake and hissing furiously, it slithered straight towards Justin Finch-Fletchley, fangs exposed, poised to strike.

Harry was not sure what made him do it. He was not even aware of deciding to do it. All he knew was that his legs were carrying him forward as though he was on castors and that he had shouted stupidly at the snake, "Leave him!" And miraculously – inexplicably – the snake slumped to the floor, docile as a thick black garden hose, its eyes now on Harry, who suddenly felt entirely calm. He knew the snake would not attack anyone now, though how he knew it, he could not have explained.

He looked up at Justin, grinning, expecting to see the other boy looking relieved, or puzzled, or even grateful – but certainly not angry and scared.

"What do you think you're playing at?" he shouted, and before Harry could say anything, Justin had scrambled to his feet and stormed out of the Hall.

Snape stepped forward, waved his wand and the snake vanished in a small puff of black smoke. Snape, too, was looking at Harry in an unexpected way: it was a shrewd and calculating look, and Harry did not like it. He was also dimly aware of an ominous muttering all around the walls. Then he felt a tugging on the back of his robes.

"Come on," said Ron's voice in his ear. "Move – come _on_..."

His friends dragged Harry all the way up to the empty Gryfindor common room and explained to him why being a parselmouth was bad news – especially at that time, as it suggested he might be a descendant of Slytherin, and therefore the only known candidate for Slyterin's heir.

Harry lay awake for hours that night, worrying whether he truly might be descended from Slytherin and what that might mean, coupled with the fact that the Sorting Hat almost sent him to Slytherin House. Finally, he decided to talk to Justin in herbology the next day and try to explain.

By the next morning, however, the snow that had begun in the night had turned into a blizzard so thick that the last herbology lesson of term was cancelled: Professor Sprout wanted to fit socks and scarves on the Mandrakes, a tricky operation she would entrust to no one else, now that it was so important for the Mandrakes to grow quickly and revive Mrs Norris, Colin Creevey and Ginny Weasley.

Harry fretted about this next to the fire in the Gryffindor common room, while Ron and Hermione used their lesson off to catch up on their preparations for their secret trip the following day.

"For heaven's sake, Harry," said Hermione, exasperated, as she had to repeat the same question to him for the third time, "Go and _find_ Justin if it's so important to you."

So Harry got up and left through the portrait hole, wondering where Justin might be. Thinking that the other boy might be using his free lesson to catch up on some work, and deciding to check the library first.

A group of the Hufflepuffs who should have been in herbology were indeed sitting at the back of the library, but they did not seem to be working. Between the long lines of high bookshelves, Harry could see that their heads were close together and they were having what looked like an absorbing conversation. He could not see whether Justin was among them. He was walking towards them when something of what they were saying met his ears, and he paused to listen, hidden in the Invisibility section.

He listened to their paranoid accusations, led by Ernie Mcmillan, who was entirely convinced at that point that Harry was the heir of Slytherin. His insane arguments seemed to be working, too. Everyone else was willing to believe what he was saying. Harry had had enough when he heard Ernie suggest that he must have defeated Voldemort with unknown dark magic. Clearing his throat loudly, he stepped out from behind the bookshelves. If he had not been feeling so angry, he would have found the sight that greeted him funny: every one of the Hufflepuffs looked as though they had been petrified by the sight of him, and the colour was draining out of Ernie's face.

"Hello," said Harry. "I'm looking for Justin Finch-Fletchley."

The Hufflepuffs' worst fears had clearly been confirmed. They all looked fearfully at Ernie.

"What do you want with him?" said Ernie, in a quavering voice.

"I wanted to tell him what really happened with that snake at the Duelling Club," said Harry.

Ernie bit his white lips and then, taking a deep breath, said, "We were all there. We saw what happened."

"Then you noticed that, after I spoke to it, the snake backed off?" said Harry.

"All I saw," said Ernie stubbornly, though he was trembling as he spoke, "was you speaking Parseltongue and chasing the snake towards Justin."

"I didn't chase it at him!" Harry said, his voice shaking with anger. "It didn't even _touch_ him!"

"It was a very near miss-" Ernie began to say, unshaken in his belief.

"It very nearly bit me!" they heard another voice across the library that the Hufflepuffs recognised immediately and gasped.

"Which would have been Malfoy's fault!" Harry recognised the ghostly voice responding as that of Nearly Headless Nick. "Not Harry's! Why would he have bothered to attack you with Malfoy's snake, which was already attacking you? Or do you think Malfoy conjured it in jest?"

Harry could not believe his ears, but as the voices came nearer, he saw Justin arguing with Nearly Headless Nick, who was defending his innocence valiantly. Harry felt stupidly grateful, and guilty all of a sudden for having been angry at the ghost for involving him in his deathday party.

"Justin, didn't I tell you to stay in our dorm?" one of his Housemates said as they all came face to face.

Justin froze in his tracks, gaping open-mouthed at Harry, while Ernie led the other Hufflepuffs to surround him – supposedly to protect him from Harry.

Nearly Headless Nick sighed. "I tried to make him see sense, Harry, but..."

"Thank you. If they want to hate me for helping, it's their choice, I guess." Harry shook his head, turned his back at the stupidly glaring Hufflepuffs and left the library together with the ghost.

The older students could not leave the castle soon enough the next morning. Nearly everyone who could had signed up for the Hogsmeade trip, despite the vicious blizzard.

"We'll need to be super careful not to get seen," Hermione repeated nervously, mostly to herself, as the boys had heard this and similar more than once already.

It was both easier and harder to sneak away that than it would have been normally. Everyone was trying to stay away from Harry, but they also liked to keep an eye on him. Silently, the three friends made their way to the statue of the one-eyed witch. They moved to the back of the statue and Hermione tapped it with her wand, whispering, " _Dissendium_." At once, the statue's hump opened wide enough to admit a fairly thin person. Harry glanced quickly up and down the corridor, hoisted himself into the hole headfirst, and pushed himself forward. His friends followed.

Sliding down the stone slide and walking through the narrow, low,earthy passage was its own adventure. The musty smell, darkness and cold only added to the secretive feeling of the trip, but what might have been an uncomfortable walk turned quite fun with the company and Hermione's warming charms.

After what felt like an hour, the passage began to rise. Ten minutes later, they came to the foot of some worn stone steps, which rose out of sight above them. Careful not to make any noise, they began to climb. It was a long way up, easily a few hundred steps, by the end of which they were all panting. Harry, who was leading them, kept looking back at his friends as they chatted, until, without warning, his head hit something hard.

"Quiet!" admonished Hermione.

Harry resisted the urge to snipe at her. Instead, he pushed the trapdoor open and peered over the edge. He was in a cellar, which was full of wooden crates and boxes. Harry climbed out of the trapdoor and held it open as his friends followed. Closed, the trapdoor blended so perfectly with the dusty floor that it was impossible to tell it was there. They crept slowly toward the wooden staircase that led upstairs. They could hear voices, and the tinkle of a bell followed by the opening and shutting of a door.

They slid underneath Harry's invisibility cloak until they heard a door open much closer at hand; somebody was about to come downstairs.

A little while later, they slid past the man shifting boxes against the opposite wall and climbed the stairs; looking back, Harry saw an enormous backside and shiny bald head, buried in a box. They reached the door at the top of the stairs, slipped through it, and found themselves behind the counter of Honeydukes.

With some regret, they sneaked out of the shop, with Ron leading his friends hidden under the cloak. Honeydukes was so crowded with Hogwarts students that no one looked twice at another Weasley kid. He edged among them, looking around, making sure to leave space for Harry and Hermione to follow.

Harry glanced back at the shelves upon shelves of the most succulent-looking sweets imaginable, before leaving Honeydukes for the blizzard outside, wishing they could afford to risk staying a while.

Hogsmeade looked like a Christmas card; the little thatched cottages and shops were all covered in a layer of crisp snow; there were holly wreaths on the doors and strings of enchanted candles hanging in the trees. They headed up the street, heads bowed against the wind, Ron shouting directions through his scarf.

Harry and Hermione finally dropped the invisibility cloak once they had reached the Shrieking Shack. It had been Ron's idea to go there, as it was unlikely they would run into any other students around there.

"So, we're all set, then?" Hermione began to say. "We just hold out our wands and the bus will turn up, right, Ron?"

"Yes, yes, come on," urged Ron. "We know where we're going, and the fake names we're going to give, and—"

"Alright, here goes—" Harry began to say, as he extended his wand hand, when he was suddenly tackled into the snow by a huge black shape.

A moment later, the shape of the dog morphed into that of a wizard. "What the bleeding hell are you three doing here?" Sirius shouted at them, looking nothing short of shell-shocked.


	10. Chapter 10

It was the strangest reunion of godfather and godson. Harry sat in snow in front of the Shrieking Shack, his friends flanking him, Sirius glaring down at him.

The look of surprise changed from godfather to godson. Now it was Harry's turn to stare at the altered appearance of the man before him. His eyes held a spark of life that had not been there before. He was dressed in muggle clothing, his beard was trimmed, hair still long, but clean and healthy-looking. Overall, he looked a lot healthier – younger, even. Almost like a different man.

During the ensuing awkward moment, Harry's face caught up with his brain and he grimaced, while the glare melted off Sirius' face, changing into something uncertain. It occurred to both of them that despite all the letters they had exchanged, all they had told each other, this was only the second time since Sirius' escape from Azkaban, that they had met face to face.

Sirius was the first to look away. He visibly drew back, distancing himself, reminding himself that he must still be a stranger to Harry. He closed his eyes and pinched his nose. "I cannot believe I fell for that," he muttered with an exhale that was half laugh, half sigh. "Told you half a dozen ways to sneak out of school…"

"I, er..." Harry felt his cheeks redden at the reminder of how he had manipulated Sirius.

Before he could begin to explain himself, though, there was a deafening BANG and an onslaught of blinding light. Sirius' curse turned into a bark as he morphed into Padfoot and jumped out of the way. A second later, a gigantic pair of wheels and headlights screeched to a halt exactly where he had just been standing. They belonged, as Harry saw when he raised his head, to a triple-decker, violently purple bus, which had appeared out of thin air. Gold lettering over the windshield spelled The Knight Bus.

"Oh, wow, it really just appeared out of thin air!" said Hermione in wonder.

A conductor in a purple uniform leapt out of the bus and began to speak loudly over their heads. "Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Stan Shunpike, and I will be your conductor this morn-"

The conductor stopped abruptly. He had just caught sight of Padfoot, standing next to Harry, who was still sitting on the ground. Harry scrambled to his feet. Close up, he saw that Stan Shunpike was only a few years older than he was, eighteen or nineteen at most, with large, protruding ears and quite a few pimples.

"Woss that beast?" he said, dropping his professional manner to stare with a fascinated horror at Padfoot.

"He's my dog," Harry said after a pause. "Er, can he come along?" Padfoot nudged him, shaking his head and trying to push him away from the bus. He stopped, though, as Stan Shunpike began to edge away from him.

"'s big for a dog..."

"He's well-behaved," said Hermione. Ron nodded.

"He'll need an extra ticket," Stan said, shooting the dog uncomfortable looks. "'e looks like a..." he muttered, not voicing the rest, though his lips still shaped the word 'grim'.

"That's fine," Harry said quickly. "How much would it be to get to London?"

"Eleven Sickles each," said Stan, "and the dog counts as a passenger. But for firteen you get 'ot chocolate, and for fifteen you get an 'ot-water bottle an' a toofbrush in the colour of your choice."

They paid and settled into their seats. There were not many passengers, only a couple of elderly witches who were quietly chatting in the farthest seats back, and an ancient-looking wizard sat directly behind the driver. Ernie Prang, the driver, himself an elderly wizard wearing very thick glasses, would occasionally shout something at him. (He was very hard of hearing, apparently.)

Harry, Ron and Hermione spent the journey sitting quietly somewhere in the middle, trying not to spill their hot chocolate on themselves (they had all bought one), as the bus lurched and turned this way and that, and to ignore Padfoot's rather vicious-sounding growling at their feet.

All in all, they were all happy when the journey was finally over and the bus skidded to a halt in front of the Leaky Cauldron.

A moment later, when the bus had left, and Padfoot began pulling him – with his teeth – away from the pub and towards a secluded alley, Harry began to reconsider.

"Sirius, wait!" hissed Ron, as he and Hermione ran after them.

"You don't understand!" began Hermione in a panicked voice. "We had to come to Diagon Alley!"

"Ah, did you now?" Sirius began answering back as soon as he had shifted. "And what dire circumstances, may I ask, forced you to sneak out of school and travel _all the way to London?!_ " His voice rose as he talked, ending on a shout directed at his godson.

Harry looked around, fearing to be overheard. "We, er, need to buy the powdered horn of a bicorn."

"For the polyjuice potion," chimed in Hermione. "I know Harry wrote to you about that..." She trailed off as Sirius shifted his attention to her, frowning uncomprehendingly.

"The – wait. Wait. You were going to brew that thing ages ago-"

"We started brewing it ages ago, you mean. You know what polyjuice potion is, right?" asked Ron.

"Yes, of course I know what it is! But I've never brewed it. Potions was never my – Never mind. Just how complicated can it be? You're second years!"

"Well, it does take a couple months to brew—" said Harry.

"You can only learn about it in the forbidden section!" added Ron.

"It's not _particularly_ difficult." Hermione rolled her eyes. "As long as you follow the instructions very carefully and take care with the more volatile ingredients—"

"Volatile—" Sirius expelled, but then stopped himself. The muscles in his cheek twitched, and slowly, involuntarily pulled into a smile. "Wait. So you really are brewing some far too advanced potion – that you shouldn't even have heard of – and you haven't messed it up so far?"

"No, we haven't. And all that work would be wasted if we can't get the bicorn horn in time," said Hermione imploringly, willing him to see their point of view.

"That's—" Sirius stopped, shook his head. "Alright, I am impressed. But! This does not change the fact that you did something completely outrageous!" But despite his words, it had changed something for him. His tone was sounding more impressed, his admonishment more perfunctory than truly meant.

Harry picked up on this and breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, now that we're here, though... er, you don't mind if we go and buy what we need, do you?"

Sirius shook his head, but before Ron and Hermione's protesting looks could turn into arguments, an unexpected, snorting laugh escaped him. "Oh, alright, then. If you're doing this, you might as well do it well. Can I borrow a wand?"

Harry held out his with a quizzical look.

"I did manage to scare up a wand, actually," Sirius went on to say, while he began waving his wand around Ron. "But in case something happens, I'd rather not leave its trace around any of you."

Harry was not sure he was following this explanation, but he had no trouble figuring out what Sirius was doing: Ron's appearance was changing in front of his eyes, looking years younger all of a sudden, hair turning brown and Hogwarts scarf turning a nondescript colour of grey. Next came Hermione.

"I don't think many people would recognise a muggleborn, but in case someone feels the need to talk about you and describe you to someone who might recognise you..." With this, Sirius visibly deaged Hermione and turned her hair short and blonde – though still bushy. "No use trying to tame it. It never works," he said, but did not explain further.

"Just how did you hope to disguise yourselves without my help?" he asked when it was Harry's turn.

"Just like you said, no one will recognise Hermione. She was going to buy the ingredients. I have my invisibility cloak with me for me and Ron," explained Harry, while wondering what he now looked like.

"Oh, for—" Sirius grimaced. "You have to be better prepared than that! Hogwarts aged children in Diagon Alley at this time of the year — Really, if you leave so many things to chance — I can't believe I'm explaining this to you," he muttered to himself, shaking his head. "Now, don't take this to mean that I condone what you did, or any future rule-breaking, because I don't! But—" He grimaced again.

"But, er, just this once, just so we can do things properly…" Harry said carefully, eager to hear more, but unwilling to push his luck.

Sirius regarded them with a frown, that deepened to a scowl. "Properly, you say," he finally said with a decisive shake of his head. "Confound it! You're right. You're spending an unauthorised Hogsmeade weekend in London! You might as well make the most of it. And having an adult with you will make things easier." With that, he returned Harry's wand and then pointed his own wand at himself.

"Now, the thing about transfiguration spells is that they're by their very nature unstable," he explained. "Especially human transfiguration. We won't be able to do any magic while transfigured and no matter how careful we are, the spells might fail any minute. So, stay close to me, and let's be in and out of the shop as quickly as we can…"

The little group of people who left the Leaky Cauldron through the backyard a little while later blended in well enough with the other visitors of Diagon Alley. It was a Saturday, and there were plenty of people come to shop, including parents with their children. No one paid the group of four any mind, and it was only partly due to the various spells that they were blanketed in, thick as cloaks.

Half an hour later, the four of them were sitting in a muggle cafe, not too far from Diagon Alley, the adolescents having hot chocolate, and Sirius drinking a cup of coffee. Sirius had dropped all pretence of responsibility with the change of appearance. He was laughing boisterously, sounding oddly like a barking dog, suggesting even more outrageous ways to spend the rest of their day than the adolescents themselves.

"What were you doing in Hogsmeade, anyway?" asked Harry, after they were done planning.

Sirius visibly sobered at the question. "Looking for Pettigrew, of course. I followed his trail to the village, but either it's been too long, or there are too many magical signatures there. Either way, I lost the trail there. For the moment," he added, and it sounded like a promise.

His young listeners exchanged looks.

"You think he's headed to Hogwarts?" asked Ron.

"I don't see why he would," Sirius replied slowly. "I have considered it, myself, but it seems such an unlikely thing to do. I wasn't sure if it was worth the risk of going to Hogwarts to check. Not that Peter was ever known for his careful planning… And not like I can be relied on to guess what he's up to, anyway." He shook his head, to dispel the bitter thoughts. "But even so, going back to a place where so many people could recognise him… Why? What possible reason could he have?" He frowned.

"Well, maybe if you check over the holidays, when there's not too many people around to spot you — just in case," said Hermione.

"Maybe. But for now, let's have fun. If you're finished with your drinks, let's go catch the bus."

It was a good thing that Sirius had managed to acquire money (though none of them had been brave enough to ask him how). Harry had been glad to have avoided going into Gringotts, even though he had brought his vault key along, but he had been worried that the goblins might recognise the vault number. Sirius had immediately waved aside the idea of Gringotts, anyway, and seemed quite happy to pay for everything, including more Knight Bus tickets for the three adolescents and Padfoot.

They emerged from the bus in Surrey, not too far from where the Dursleys lived. They were some distance away, as the Knight Bus avoided stopping in large open areas, no matter what Stan Shunpike thought about the muggles' observational skills. The large building was easy enough to spot, even from a distance.

Sirius had barely changed back into his human form when he drew his wand and transformed yet again, this time into an uncanny resemblance of Vernon Dursley. "What do you think? Will I pass?"

Harry nodded, looking nothing short of disturbed.

Sirius left the three friends there, while he made his way to the Smeltings Academy. While they waited, Harry and Ron tried to guess at Dudley's reaction when his 'dad' turned up to take him out of school. Hermione mostly ignored them, and seemed much more interested in the powdered bicorn horn they had bought earlier. A short while later, they saw the shape of Vernon Dursley coming towards them, moving faster than Harry had ever seen before, with Dudley trailing after him, trying to keep up. As soon as the blond boy spotted his cousin and his two friends, he stopped in his tracks. Harry laughed in response and waved him over.

"Harry? What is going on?" Dudley began to say, before he had even reached them, not stopping to draw breath first.

Sirius, with his much larger body presently, urged him along, out of sight from the school, and before Harry had time to explain, turned into Padfoot. He barked enthusiastically while Dudley screamed, and chaos reigned as Harry and his friends tried to explain amid their laughter. Finally, they reached the point in their tale when Padfoot, formerly Snuffles, turned out to be a wizard.

"I wanted to tell you," said Harry. "Really, I did. But I didn't want to write all this in a letter. What with Sirius being on the run and Pettigrew still around — and Dobby, of course—"

"Aw, man. And I thought I'd been following all your adventures this year. But I didn't know so many things…" Dudley sounded disappointed.

"Well, I think I can ward my letters a little better than those three," said Sirius. "If you don't mind more letters from the wizarding world, I could keep you up to date as well—"

"Oh, would you? That'd be so great!"

"Of course. I wanted to tell you myself. I wanted to thank you, for being so brave this summer, for saving Harry from that awful situation, but I didn't know how to contact you, how to tell you who I was without frightening you."

"Oh, that," said Dudley, trying to sound casual, but looking obviously pleased.

"And now that you scared him anyway," said Harry with a pointed look at his godfather, "maybe we should get going. We were thinking, maybe we could go back to London, maybe watch a film, and Hermione wanted to do some sightseeing—"

"Ah, and you wanted to take me along?" Dudley did not sound particularly enthusiastic at the prospect.

"Well, only if you wanted to." Harry frowned. He liked his school, as opposed to Dudley, but even he would enjoy sneaking out for a day to have fun.

"I do," Dudley groaned. "But I had a match today…"

"Oooh, that muggle sport, was it?" asked Ron.

"Is there a boxing competition today?" asked Hermione.

"Sort of. Not a proper one, that'll be at the end of the year, but…"

"Can we watch?" asked Harry.

"I don't think so. There aren't any visitors today. That'll be later, in the summer—"

"Oh, I'm sure your headmaster wouldn't mind your 'dad' watching — he seemed very eager to curry favour with, er, me," said Sirius.

"And we can use Harry's invisibility cloak," said Ron, nodding.

This did not delay them for very long, because Dudley lost early on. It took a little longer for Sirius to get away from the headmaster's reassurances that Dudley would soon be doing better, but eventually he extricated himself. Once they had left the school and he was back to his usual appearance, Sirius borrowed the cloak from Harry and went back.

"I made sure the headmaster won't think to tell the real Vernon Dursley about this," he explained when he came back.

They took muggle transport to London, so as not to draw too much suspicion from the people on the Knight Bus. It was later in the afternoon when they got there. Harry thought Christmas shopping might be a good idea, and his cousin and friends agreed. They all tried to hurry, but by the end of it, they did not have too much time left until they had to go back, so Sirius decided they would only do one more thing. Hermione was a bit put out, but the boys' votes for cinema won. Dudley wanted to see Home alone 2, as he had enjoyed the first part. Hermione rolled her eyes, but the other two boys agreed, as they had no preference themselves.

With large bowls of popcorn, courtesy of Sirius again, they settled into their seats to watch the film. Harry and Hermione made sure to tell Ron what to expect, so he would not draw attention to them. Ron stayed perfectly silent inside the cinema, but as soon as they were outside, he began to bombard them with questions, everything from how alarm clocks worked in the muggle world to how a film was made, sounding quite a bit like his father.

"I should not have let you watch that," Sirius muttered to himself, but immediately had four pairs of indignant eyes on him. "What! Like you lot need to come across any more bad ideas." He shook his head, but the youngsters ignored him, continuing with their enthusiastic discussion of the film.

Sooner than any of them liked, the short winter day turned into evening, signalling it was time for Dudley to go back to his school, and for Sirius to say goodbye. He did not take the Knight Bus back to Hogsmeade with them, saying his goodbyes together with Dudley, before disapparating to places unknown. Honeydukes was almost empty when the three friends sneaked in, covered by the invisibility cloak. The way back through the tunnel seemed even longer, exhausted as they were from their long journey. But Hermione would not let them rest until they had added the bicorn horn to the potion.

The had barely left the statue out of sight when they ran into Snape. He looked straight at them, as they walked past him, his gaze following them until they were out of sight, inscrutable. They continued chattering about the day's events as soon as they were past him, none of them mentioning their unease at the encounter.

"Well, this is it," she said, after adding the bicorn horn. "The rest should be easy enough. We just have to wait a little longer."

Elated, they walked to their dorm, reminding each other to keep their voices down, because everything they wanted to talk about involved rule-breaking of one form or another.

~HP~

The panic that had reigned in school after Ginny's attack had settled down somewhat, but not enough to stop students from wanting to go home. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry to book seats on the Hogwarts express to go home for Christmas.

Harry was of course staying, but so were his two friends and the elder Weasley boys. Ron's parents meant to visit Bill in Egypt, but thought it better for their remaining children to stay closer to Ginny in the hospital wing.

At last the term ended, and a silence deep as the snow on the grounds descended on the castle. Harry found it peaceful, rather than gloomy, and enjoyed the fact that he, Hermione, and the Weasleys were almost the only people left in the Gryffindor Tower, which meant they could play Exploding Snap loudly without bothering anyone, and practice duelling in private.

Perhaps they grew careless with the added freedom, forgot to check their voices when talking about their secret plans. Or maybe Snape had been keeping them under close watch for so long, that it was bound to happen eventually.

A couple days before Christmas, Hagrid arrived late for dinner in the Great Hall, his face entirely hidden by a woolly, snow-covered balaclava, and wearing his moleskin overcoat. A dead rooster was hanging from one of his massive, gloved hands.

"Hagrid, what is the matter?" Dumbledore asked from his seat behind the high table.

Hagrid held up the limp rooster. "Second one killed this term, Professor," he explained. "It's either foxes or a Blood-Suckin' Bugbear, an' I kept looking ter find any traces around the hen coop. Must have forgot the time." He looked chagrined, as he finally noticed everyone's eyes on him. He glanced at the dead rooster in his hand, only now noticing how out of place it was.

"Put that away, Hagrid, and come have dinner," said Dumbledore. "We can talk about it later."

But despite his words, the teachers seemed to be talking about it to Hagrid all through dinner. When Harry and his friends were leaving the Great Hall, they heard Flitwick offering Hagrid to put some charms around the hen coop. Dumbledore then turned to Snape and asked him if he would be willing to help as well. "Perhaps some sort of a trap with a sedative in it," he suggested. Snape grudgingly agreed to look into appropriate potions.

"Speaking of potions..." Harry said to his friends with a significant look, to remind them that they had to check up on their brewing polyjuice.

That was all it took.

They were leaving Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, Ron pulled open the door, only to find Snape standing in front of it, looking like an overgrown bat – a menacing, ill-tempered bat, at that. The three friends froze.

"What were you all doing inside a girls' bathroom? An out-of-service girls' bathroom? Care to explain?" asked Snape. They gaped like fish back at him. "Shall I go inside to find out?" he continued in a deceptively calm voice, before any of them had found their voices.

Harry and his friends made unintelligible noises, the panic evident on their faces.

"Or would you care to explain yourselves?" When Snape did not get a quick answer, he walked past them into the bathroom, the adolescents following in his tracks. He did not have to search long to discover their bubbling polyjuice potion. "What in the..." He went as close to the cauldron as he dared, looking into its depths with a sick sort of fascination.

"That's not—" Harry broke off, unsure how to explain.

"That, Potter, doesn't look like any potion you three should be brewing. Not that you should be brewing any potions outside of my class. In fact, if I didn't know it to be impossible, I might think this was..." He trailed off, not finishing the outrageous thought. "No matter. Whatever it is, it won't do any damage once it's gone."

With that, he drew his wand, only to be interrupted by loud, panicky shouts of, "No!" and the three Gryffindors jumping in front of the cauldron.

"Step aside at once," Snape said very carefully, very clearly, his wand still trained behind their backs at the contents of the cauldron.

"We can't give it up, Professor," Hermione said, voice shaky, but determined.

"You don't understand!" said Harry.

"We need it to find out who attacked Ginny!" added Ron. His friends looked at him, worried that he would give out any information at all.

Snape debated his next steps. For a moment, he looked visibly undecided. But they knew, that he must remember a similar situation from the year before. And indeed, Snape slowly lowered his wand.

"You're willing to explain, I take it? Well, come along then."

Harry and his friends followed reluctantly as he led them out of the bathroom and towards the dungeons. They did not speak until they had reached his office, unchanged since Harry's and Ron's visit after their arrival to Hogwarts in the Ford Anglia. Neither boy was happy to see it a second time that year.

Snape got out a vial from one of his many shelves and carefully placed it on the desk. He seemed to debate something with himself, then pointed his wand at the desk to make a pot of tea appear with a pop, together with three mugs. He uncorked the vial and added three drops of the liquid into each mug.

"This is called veritaserum," he began to explain. "It is a potion that will force you to answer questions truthfully. If you think the truth will convince me to let you keep your mysterious potion, then drink this now. Feel free to add the tea, if you prefer," he added with a sardonic smile.

Harry stared at the mugs with dawning horror. "But you could ask us anything..."

"Many secrets, have we? The sort that might land you in trouble, if it became known?"

"You can't do this! There is no way you're allowed to do this!" said Hermione.

Snape's face darkened. "You're right that I cannot force you to drink this. However, there can be no problem with you drinking it voluntarily, of course."

Harry was about to shout that he would never agree to it, when he saw Ron looking at the mugs desperately, his internal fight clearly visible on his face.

"Only if you drink some yourself," Harry said recklessly to Snape.

"Come again?"

"You can ask about the potion, that's fine," Harry said quickly. "But we need a guarantee that you won't just go ahead and – and ask about, er—"

"Things that are none of your business," finished Ron.

"Are you really so delusional as to think that your – silly, childish – secrets can be bartered against _mine_?" Snape looked outraged.

"Well, there are three of us," said Hermione, going along with Harry's idea.

"And we won't ask anything, unless you start asking us about other things," said Harry, warming up to his impulsive idea.

"What is to stop you?"

"You could expel us for that potion – or at least get us into a lot of trouble," said Ron, a little recklessly.

Harry thought Snape would explode any second, but instead, he summoned one more mug and added three drops to it, making sure they could see exactly what he did. They all took their mugs, added tea and drank. A minute later, four empty mugs were placed back on the desk. Then Snape turned around to light a fire in the fireplace. "Sit," he said curtly, pointing towards the chairs in front of it.

"This dose will be effective for about ten minutes." He checked the time. "You will answer every question as succinctly as possible. You will not ask any questions – not rhetorical ones, not questions to each other, just none. Is that understood?"

Harry was about to nod when he felt a compulsion that was not to be argued with, and ended up forcing out a, "Yes!" His friends did the same. He felt dread creep up on him, tried not to think about Sirius, hoping that his gamble would pay off.

"Good. Now, what is that potion brewing in the bathroom?"

"Polyjuice," came the triple reply once again, though not as simultaneously. Now that he was expecting it, Harry could delay the answer by a smidgen of a moment, just enough to think about the answer, before saying it. The dread lessened ever so slightly.

Snape's lip curled. "You three brewed polyjuice? Tell me—" he went on, but was interrupted by three shouts of "Yes!" He had to regroup at that. Despite himself, he seemed more than a little impressed, and the next few questions that followed all had to do with the potion itself. He found out about Lockhart signing their permission form – which made his lip curl in disgust – and their potions ingredients getting delivered by owl post.

"You say you had _most_ of the ingredients delivered by post. What about the remaining ones?" he then asked.

They all fought the answer, but Harry knew there was no way to avoid answering. "We went to London and bought it from the apothekary in Diagon Alley." That was a truthful answer, even if it was not the whole truth. But the potion let him get away with it. His friends agreed with him, without having to explain more.

"I knew it! I knew you must have left the school when I saw you in front of that statue! How did you even find out about that?" This was asked almost to himself, but the potion did not care.

"Ron's brothers told us about it," Hermione replied quickly, apparently having figured out the same trick as Harry.

"You can't punish them!" said Ron. "That was not a fair question!"

Snape raised an eyebrow at the outburst, but switched the topic. "What I want to know is why you brewed the potion. What are you planning to do with it?"

"We need to question Malfoy. We think he's behind the attacks," said Harry.

Snape drew back, his eyebrows going up. "You are delusional. What makes you think that a second year student could manage something remotely this serious?"

"He might be getting help from his father, who refused to have the school closed," said Hermione.

"He hates muggleborns, he hates us and my family and he's staying at Hogwarts, now of all times!" Ron gave all the safe answers he could think of.

Harry would have loved to point out that the three of them were second years themselves, but the potion got in the way. The inattentiveness cost him. "He hates me. And Dobby warned me that there would be danger to me at Hogwarts this year," he blurted out, then covered his mouth with his hands.

Snape became very still. "Dobby, you say?"

"Yes. He's a house elf – at least that's what he said he was. He tried to keep me from returning to Hogwarts, first by stealing my mail, and then by locking the gate to platform 9¾. And Ron said only really rich families have house elves, like the Malfoys, right?" Harry ended on a question without meaning to.

"Yes, the Malfoys' house elf is called Dobby," answered Snape, and did not even complain that Harry had gone against his rules. They had all grown very quiet, very still, at that revelation.

Snape distractedly asked another few questions about how exactly they intended to question Malfoy, before checking the time. "The potion is about to wear off. You may go now. I will... not... stop you. However, should you get in trouble with another teacher, I will deny having given you anything resembling permission. In fact, I will deny any knowledge of your activities."

With that, he turned towards the desk again and poured himself another tea – in a fresh, newly summoned mug.

The three friends shuffled towards the door. "Er, goodbye, then," Hermione said. "Enjoy your tea." It was not really a question, but the awkwardness of a polite goodbye to Snape made her voice rise at the end.

"I don't," Snape felt compelled to answer. "Not if I don't have biscuits with it." He barely paused to draw breath in between his forced answer and the shouted, "Out!" that followed.

Harry and his friends were already out the door, hurrying back to their dorms, frantically discussing the new information about Dobby and their plans of interrogation.


End file.
